Biography

Kirkwood F. Adams Jr., M.D., is Associate Professor of Medicine and Radiology in the Division of Cardiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he founded and for many years directed the UNC Heart Failure Program and served as the first transplant cardiologist for two decades, helping to establish this treatment at UNC. Dr. Adams is currently involved in numerous research activities related to heart failure with particular focus on novel drug development in acute heart failure and translational research concerning the identification and clinical application of cardiovascular biomarkers and pharmacogenomics. Dr. Adams received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina. He did his internship and residency at North Carolina Memorial Hospital, where he also completed a fellowship in cardiology. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, with subspecialty certification in cardiology. Dr. Adams has been involved in more than 120 completed grant- and industry-funded research projects, and he is currently leading or participating in five drug development or device trials, several registry and database studies, and has recently been involved in three NHLBI-funded trials: ACTION (investigating outcomes of exercise training in patients with heart failure), DISCOVER (investigating stress and heart failure), and ESCAPE (role of right heart catheterization in the management of advanced heart failure). Dr. Adams is the principal investigator for the national multicenter database group, UNITE-HF, which focuses on registries of patients with heart failure. Through his leadership, this group has published extensively on the prevalence and relationship to quality of life of anemia in heart failure, and the association of various biomarkers with anemia of heart failure. Dr. Adams also serves on the data and safety monitoring boards of the DEFINITE, EMOTE, and IMPACT and SADHART-CHF trials and on national advisory boards for several pharmaceutical companies. He has served on the Steering Committees for the ESCAPE, ACQUAINT-HF, ACTIV in CHF, RITZ 4, OPTIME CHF, REVERT, and HF-ACTION trials and the ADHERE and STAMINA-HFP registries. Dr. Adams has served as editorial advisor to American Heart Journal, Journal of Cardiac Failure, and TheHeart.org. Dr. Adams has also been a reviewer for a number of cardiovascular journals. He has published more than 150 manuscripts in refereed journals, a number of book chapters and monographs, and more than 150 abstracts. Dr. Adams has a major interest in developing practice guidelines for congestive heart failure. He also served as chair of the Guidelines/Clinical Positions Committee of the Heart Failure Society of America from 1996 to 2006 and is a past member of the Executive Council of this society. He led the development of the original guideline devoted to pharmacological therapy and the first comprehensive guideline for heart failure developed by this society.

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