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Johns Hopkins receives gift for heart disease prevention research
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In June, the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine received a $10 million gift to conduct research on heart disease prevention and endow a professorship.
The gift from Irene Pollin, founder of Sister to Sister, an organization that provides free heart screenings and education for women, will endow the inaugural Kenneth Jay Pollin Professorship in Cardiology and provide research funding and training.
Roger S. Blumenthal, MD, director of the Ciccarone Center, has become the first Kenneth Jay Pollin Professor of Cardiology. Blumenthal, who is editor of the Cardiology Today CHD and Prevention section, is an expert on the development, treatment and prevention of heart disease.
Roger S.
Blumenthal
“Ms. Pollin’s extraordinary support will help us lead transformative work in the field of preventive cardiology. Her generosity will make it possible for us to better define risk factors and implement new ways to prevent heart attack and stroke,” Blumenthal said in a release. “Her gift will also allow us to provide advanced training to more of our postdoctoral cardiology fellows in cardiovascular epidemiology and clinical trial design at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.”
Pollin became an advocate for heart health after losing two children to congenital heart defects. Her son Kenneth, for whom the professorship is named, died at age 13 months, and her daughter Linda died at age 16 years.
“If you’re lucky to be born with a healthy heart, you need to take care of it, and there’s a lot you can do,” Pollin stated. “I see this gift to the Ciccarone Center as a way to make a powerful impact on the knowledge and behavior of people to improve their health.”