Milton Packer, MD, is an internationally recognised clinical investigator who has made many seminal contributions to the field of heart failure, both in understanding its mechanisms and defining its rational management. Dr. Packer’s work has spanned nearly 40 years and has been strongly supported by numerous investigator-initiated grants from the NIH and from industry. His research established the cornerstone of the current modern treatments for heart failure, for which he was the recipient of the Lewis Katz lifetime achievement award in cardiovascular research. Dr. Packer is also widely recognised for his outstanding leadership abilities, having led the Division of Circulatory Physiology at Columbia University for 12 years, which he built into the nation’s most outstanding research group devoted to heart failure. He has been the principal investigator of more than 15 large international multicenter trials.
Dr. Packer spent most of his career in New York City, where he was the Dickinson Richards Professor and Chief of the Division of Circulatory Physiology at Columbia University. From 2004 until 2015, he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Clinical Sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas where he held the Gayle and Paul Stoffel Distinguished Chair in Cardiology.
Dr. Packer is currently the Distinguished Scholar in Cardiovascular Science at Baylor University Medical Center, part of Baylor Scott & White Health.