Ralph J. Damiano Jr. is the Evarts A. Graham Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He is co-chairman of the Heart & Vascular Center.
Dr. Damiano has authored more than 430 scientific publications and given more than 600 lectures and presentations around the nation and the world. His major contributions have been in the area of myocardial preservation, surgical electrophysiology, and minimally invasive cardiac surgery. Dr. Damiano is past president of the Society of Clinical Surgery, the Cardiac Surgical Biology Club, and the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the AATS in May 2020.
Dr. Damiano has been a pioneer in the area of minimally invasive cardiac surgery. His developmental work on robotically assisted microsurgery for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) earned him a Computer World Smithsonian Award in June of 1997. Dr. Damiano performed the first robotically assisted surgical procedure in North America, a CABG, in December 1998. He also has been a leader in the field of the surgical treatment of arrhythmias. His team at Washington University is world-renowned for its clinical and basic research on the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. His group has been continuously funded by the NIH for over 30 years in this area. They have developed the gold-standard surgical procedure, the Maze IV operation, which has been adopted around the world. His group has continued to evolve the procedure to be less-invasive, more effective, and more widely applicable to patients with this arrhythmia.
Marc Gillinov, M.D. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Cleveland Clinic. Cleveland Clinic is North Americas largest cardiac surgery program, performing more than 5,000 cardiac surgical procedures annually at its Main Campus in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. Gillinov has a particular interest in mitral valve repair with a focus on robotic mitral valve surgery. He has written extensively on robotic mitral valve repair and has produced a series of educational surgical videos and manuscripts with the intention of demystifying mitral valve repair in degenerative disease.
Dr. Gillinov also serves as Chair of the NIH-funded Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network (CTSN), the worlds premier cardiac surgical research enterprise. Under Dr. Gillinovs leadership, the CTSN has conducted numerous randomized controlled trials that have informed guidelines and changed clinical practice.
Dr. Gillinov has been an AATS member for 25 years, and his AATS activities have included Program Co-Director for the Annual Meeting, Co-Director of the STARS meeting, Board membership in the AATS Foundation, and membership and leadership of several AATS committees. Dr. Gillinov has been appointed as a Director of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, and, reflecting his commitment to training and education, is the designated Director for Education. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife, Lisa.