By MITZI BAKER

As the No. 1 killer of Americans, heart disease requires an innovative and well-coordinated strike from the medical profession. Through development of improved diagnostics, preventive strategies and high-tech treatments, Robert Robbins, MD, will lead the charge as director of the new Stanford Institute of Cardiovascular Medicine.

The institute will foster and expand upon ongoing research, from the genetics and development of cardiovascular diseases to novel techniques for transplantation and restoring damaged heart tissue.

“Cardiovascular diseases are an important health problem for society,” said Robbins, associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery and director of the heart, heart-lung and lung transplant program. “We need new strategies for eliminating them.”

For example, he said while heart transplantation has been a miracle savior for some, there are just too few available donor hearts -- about 2,000 annually -- to supply the 5 million or so Americans with end-stage heart disease. “Treating congestive heart failure with cardiac transplantation is analogous to treating poverty with lottery tickets,” he said.

As director of the Institute for Cardiovascular Medicine, Bobby Robbins, shown in a lab in the Falk Cardiovascular Research Building, will lead researchers toward discoveries of wide-ranging treatments for heart disease. Photo: Visual Art Services

A number of ailments, including congenital heart diseases and dysfunction of the coronary arteries, aorta, valves and vasculature, end up at the same place: heart failure, which results in death or disability.

Although there have been many advances in treating cardiovascular disease in recent years, Robbins said an enormous amount of work remains to be done. Heart disease is the top killer of Americans, with one in four Americans affected, at a cost of more than $150 billion annually.

“The rationale for establishing this institute is that cardiovascular disease is a major problem that needs to be addressed. I think that the strength of the Stanford Institute for Cardiovascular Medicine will be to leverage our position in novel discovery and innovation and translating this new knowledge into the care of patients,” said Robbins, who has been a faculty member at Stanford since 1993. “My vision for the institute is incorporated by its mission statement, which is the prevention, treatment and elimination of cardiovascular diseases.”

Robbins is a cardiac surgeon with expertise in heart transplantation as well as treating complex cardiac diseases. He also heads a research laboratory that embodies what the institute aims to do on a large scale: collaboration, integration of basic and clinical research and education of students and young physicians.

His current clinical research projects include improving the process of heart transplantation through the genetic manipulation of donor tissue and by developing devices that allow bypass surgeries to be performed through a very small incision. Robbins is also active in basic research, including the use of stem cells and growth factors to repair heart tissue damaged by a heart attack.

The Institute for Cardiovascular Medicine is the third of the four Stanford Institutes of Medicine to have a director named. The Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine is directed by Irv Weissman, MD, the Karel and Avice Beekhuis Professor of Cancer Biology, and the Neurosciences Institute is directed by Bill Mobley, MD, the John E. Cahill Family Professor. Along with the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infectious Diseases, which does not yet have a director, these four institutes focus on translating discoveries from the bench to the bedside, and offer a linkage between the basic and clinical science faculty along with connections to clinical programs at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

The self-stated “grand challenge” of the heart institute is “the improvement in the cardiovascular health of patients through the translation of innovative discoveries.”

Part of the way the institute aims to achieve the challenge, said Robbins, is through the integration of five existing cardiovascular centers that cover clinical, laboratory and population studies and cardiovascular bioengineering.

One of the primary goals of the institute, Robbins said, is in reaching out: to young researchers and physicians through educational programs; to other departments at the School of Medicine and on the main campus -- already 136 faculty from 25 departments have expressed interest in being affiliated with the institute; and to the community beyond the university, by taking advantage of Stanford’s Silicon Valley home and forging collaborations with pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies to help bring laboratory findings to the patient.

Robbins pointed out that four of the Wall Street Journal’s “Ten major medical advances you’re likely to see in the coming year” for 2004 encompass heart health. Robbins said that through the wide-ranging collaborations exploring new territory such as the genetics behind heart disease, the development of cardiac-assist devices and new methods of repairing heart damage, many major medical advances will be made by the new institute.