Robert A. Kloner MD, PhD

Robert A. Kloner, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine, in the Cardiovascular Division, Keck School of Medicine, at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles ( since 1988).  He is also Director of Research of the Heart Institute of Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles ( since 1987)  and attending cardiologist at Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center.

Dr. Kloner received his MD in the Honors Program in Medical Education and PhD (Experimental Pathology) degrees from Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago where he trained in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Jennings.  Dr. Kloner is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha honor society.  He completed internship and residency in internal medicine at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.  Additional training included clinical and research fellowships in medicine and cardiology (with Drs. Eugene Braunwald and Peter Maroko) at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  He served as Assistant and then Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and as an attending cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  There he received an Established Investigator Award of the American Heart Association (AHA).  Dr. Kloner is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, an Inaugural Fellow of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of the AHA, and was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Kloner has made major contributions to the understanding  of heart disease, including  such concepts as no-reflow phenomenon, stunned myocardium, limitation of myocardial infarct size, post-reperfusion apoptosis, reperfusion phenomena and triggers of cardiovascular events.  Other major research interests include cardiac cell transplantation, the effect of toxins on the heart, preventative cardiology, hypertension, and PDE5 inhibition.  He has participated in studies funded by the National Institutes of Health on stunned myocardium, the healing phase of myocardial infarction, cardiac cell transplantation, doxorubicin cardiomyopathy, functional analysis of cardiac grafts, and stem cells.  He has served on the NIH Cardiovascular Study Section A and has participated in a number of NIH Workshops.  He chaired an NIH workshop in September of 2010 on cardioprotection.

A frequent contributor to the medical and scientific press, Dr. Kloner has authored or co-authored 667 original papers in peer-reviewed journals, 215 chapters or monographs, and 491 abstracts.  Dr. Kloner is the author and editor of 18 medical texts including: Cardiovascular Trials Reviews (10 editions), The Guide to Cardiology (3 editions), Stunned Myocardium, Ischemic Preconditioning, VIAGRA, and Heart Disease and Erectile Dysfunction, and three novels: The Beta Virus, Mind Cure, and The Deity Genes.

Among his editorial responsibilities, Dr. Kloner serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics.  He serves as Guest Editor of Circulation.  He is on the editorial boards of American Journal of Cardiology, Basic Research in Cardiology, International Journal of Impotence Research, Regenerative Medicine and was recently appointed to the editorial board of Life Sciences.   Among his many career distinctions, Dr. Kloner has been listed in Who’s Who in America and The Best Doctors in America and in 2002 was identified by the Institute for Scientific Information as ISI Highly cited.com; one of the worlds’s most highly cited scientific authors.  Dr. Kloner is a frequent lecturer at major scientific symposia including the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, and Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Meetings, International Society of Heart Research ,  and  he has lectured at most major academic medical centers in the United States.