Suzanne Oparil, MD
Professor of Medicine University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Suzanne Oparil, MD, is Professor of Medicine and of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham, where she is also Director of the Vascular Biology and Hypertension Program.
Dr Oparil received her medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, New York, where she was first in her class. She completed her residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and a fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
A past-President of the American Heart Association, Dr Oparil was the first woman past-President of the American Federation for Medical Research. She also has leadership roles in the Association of American Physicians, American Society for Clinical Investigation, Southern Society for Clinical Investigation, American Physiological Society, Clinical Physiology Advisory Committee, American Society of Hypertension, and Inter-American Society of Hypertension.
Dr Oparil has a career interest in the fundamental mechanisms of cardiovascular disease and in using the information to develop novel treatments. Her research spans the gamut from molecular and cellular studies to the whole animal to clinical trials. She has made a number of discoveries that have major clinical impact: 1) The observation that angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), a biological catalyst responsible for generating a hypertension producing hormone, is involved in many forms of vascular disease. This work has led to the development of the ACE inhibitors, the most commonly used class of drugs for the treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure. 2) Identification of endothelin as the major mediator of pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary vascular disease. This has led to the development of a class of drugs that provide hope for patients with pulmonary hypertension, a previously untreatable disorder. 3) Definition of novel pathways by which blood vessels are protected from injury by estrogens. This research, carried out in rodent models, has given important clues about how female sex hormones protect the blood vessels and has yielded tantalizing targets for future gene therapy.
Dr Oparil was honored with the Founder's Award of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Consortium for Southeastern Hypertension Control, and the Irving Page-Alva Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Heart Association-High Blood Pressure Research Council. She is author and coauthor of more than 1,000 abstracts, book chapters, and journal articles in Circulation, New England Journal of Medicine, and American Journal of Hypertension, among others.
