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2019 Early Career Investigator Honorees

September 16, 2019
by Elisabeth Reitman

The American Heart Association (AHA) selected three Yale physicians as finalists for the Early Career Investigator Awards.

The AHA’s Council of Basic Cardiovascular Sciences selected Zaniar Ghazizadeh, MD, as a finalist for the Louis N. and Arnold M. Katz Basic Science Research Prize for Early Career Investigators. The award recognizes outstanding research in biochemical, cellular, molecular, and genetic sciences.

Ghazizadeh is a resident at Yale New Haven Hospital with a special interest in cardiovascular disease modeling and regeneration. He graduated from Tehran University of Medical Sciences and completed his postdoctoral research training at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Elliott Miller, MD, has been nominated for the Cournand & Comroe Early Career Investigator Award. Sponsored by the AHA’s Council on Cardiopulmonary, Critical Care, Perioperative and Resuscitation, the award acknowledges the accomplishments of early career investigators in biomedical science.

Miller received his undergraduate degree in Biology with minors in Anthropology and Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2012, he received his Doctor of Medicine degree from Georgetown University where he received several honors. He completed Internal Medicine training in the Osler Medical Service at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by a fellowship in critical care medicine at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. He is a third-year fellow at Yale Cardiovascular Medicine.

The Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology nominated Sahar Esteghamat, PhD, as a finalist for the Elaine W. Raines Early Career Investigator Award. Esteghamat earned her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. She pursued postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and Yale School of Medicine and is now an associate research scientist in the Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Digestive Diseases, Yale School of Medicine.

Ghazizadeh, Miller, and Esteghamat will present their abstracts, “Abnormalities Of Cardiomyocyte Polarity Underlie A Primary Genetic Substrate For Atrial Fibrillation,” and “Clinical Implications Of Respiratory Failure In Patients Receiving Durable Left Ventricular Assist Devices For End Stage Heart Failure,” and “ CELA2A mutations Derive Early-onset Cardiovascular Diseases” at the 2019 American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions Annual Conference in Philadelphia, PA., November 16-18, 2019.

Submitted by Elisabeth Reitman on September 16, 2019