The Prince of Asturias Foundation
Valentín Fuster (Barcelona, 1943) was awarded both his degree and PhD in Medicine by the University of Barcelona. He moved to the United States in the Seventies to continue his studies. He lectured in Medicine and cardiovascular illnesses at the Mayo Medical School in Minnesota, at the Mount Sinai Hospital Medical School in New York and, between 1991 and 1994, was Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 1994, he was appointed director of the Institute of Cardiology at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He is head of the Scientific Advisory and External Assessment Committee of the National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (Spanish acronym, CNIC), with headquarters in Madrid, and has chaired the World Heart Federation. Since 2004, he has been editor-in-chief of the journal Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine, which is published under the brand name of the prestigious journal Nature. He maintains a strong interest in helping disseminate Science in Spain and is the author of many books and articles on his work and research. He currently directs the Mount Sinai Hospital Institute of Cardiology in New York and is Director General of CNIC.
The contributions to cardiovascular medicine made by Dr Fuster have had an enormous impact on improving the treatment of patients with heart complaints. Perhaps most acclaimed has been his explanation of the pathogenesis of acute coronary syndromes –acute myocardial infarction and unstable angina–, making a tremendous contribution on a worldwide scale in the fields of cardiology and haematology. He has recently conducted studies linking heart attacks and dementia.
Holder of honorary doctorates from the International University of Catalonia and the Menendez Pelayo International University, he has received among other honours the Gruentzig Award of the European Society of Cardiology (1992), the prize for Scientific Distinction of the American College of Cardiology (1993), the Lewis A. Conner Cardiovascular Research Award (1993), the James B. Eric Achievement Award of the American Heart Association’s Council of Clinical Cardiology, the Distinguished Service Award (2002) of the American College of Cardiology and the Heart of Gold (2003), the highest honour awarded by the American Heart Association. In 2005, he received the Distinguished Researcher Award conferred by the InterAmerican Society of Cardiology and, in 2011, the Lefoulon-Delalande Grand Prize for Science.
