Robert A. Kloner, MD, Ph.D., is Chief Science Officer and Director of Cardiovascular Research at Huntington Medical Research Institutes (HMRI). He serves as Professor of Medicine (Clinical Scholar) at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and is an attending cardiologist at LAC+USC. Prior to accepting an appointment at HMRI, Dr. Kloner served as Director of Research of the Heart Institute of Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles from 1987 to December 2014. He has run nationally and internationally known cardiovascular research programs for over 40 years, training dozens of medical scientists and collaborating with scores of physician-scientists, numerous research institutions, and medical industries worldwide. During his administrative tenure at both Wayne State University and The Heart Institute of Good Samaritan Hospital, he built successful research facilities from the ground-up, creating centers recognized for scientific excellence and innovation.
In the mid-1970s Dr. Kloner received his MD in the Honors Program in Medical Education and Ph.D. (Experimental Pathology) degrees from Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago where he trained in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Jennings. Dr. Kloner is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society. He completed internship and residency in internal medicine at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts (1975-1978). Additional training included clinical and research fellowships in medicine and cardiology (with Drs. Eugene Braunwald and Peter Maroko) at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He served as Assistant and then Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and was an attending cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (1979-1984). He was the recipient of an Established Investigator Award of the American Heart Association (AHA), is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, an Inaugural Fellow of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of the AHA, and was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Cardiovascular Section of the American Physiology Society.
Dr. Kloner has made major contributions to the understanding and treatment of heart disease, receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), American Heart Association (AHA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Defense (DOD) and numerous corporations and private foundations. He has made major contributions in the following areas: the pathophysiology of heart attack; treatments for heart attack; triggers of cardiovascular events; studies on high blood pressure and heart failure; the effect of toxins like alcohol, cocaine, and pollution on the heart; stem cell therapy for the heart; the intersection between sexual dysfunction and cardiovascular disease. His current work at HMRI, funded by the DOD, assesses new therapies for hemorrhagic shock; additional current work funded by the NIH and Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program studies the effects of e-cigarettes on the cardiovascular system. Throughout his career, Dr. Kloner has participated in several large multi-center studies. This experience has enabled Dr. Kloner to actively facilitate cross-disciplinary research initiatives within HMRI, advising and collaborating with the bio-technology group (cell phone app for assessing heart function), neuro-science, stem cell biology, and imaging scientists.
A frequent contributor to the medical and scientific press, Dr. Kloner has authored or co-authored over 720 original papers in peer-reviewed journals, 219 chapters or monographs, and 518 abstracts (as of 2019). Dr. Kloner is the author and editor of 18 medical texts including Cardiovascular Trials Reviews (10 editions); The Guide to Cardiology (3 editions); Stunned Myocardium; Ischemic Preconditioning; VIAGRA; and Heart Disease and Erectile Dysfunction. In addition, he has written and published three medical science fiction novels.
Among his editorial responsibilities, Dr. Kloner served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics (2009-2019). He has served as Guest Editor of Circulation. He is on the editorial boards of American Journal of Cardiology, Basic Research in Cardiology, International Journal of Impotence Research, Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Regenerative Medicine, and Life Sciences. Among his many career distinctions, Dr. Kloner has been listed in Who’s Who in America, The Best Doctors in America and in 2002 was cited by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the most highly cited scientific authors. He has an H-index of 99 and is cited over 41,830 times as per the Web of Science. Dr. Kloner is a frequent lecturer at major scientific symposia including the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, and Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Meetings, and he has lectured at most major academic medical centers in the United States. He has taught at both the Keck School of Medicine at USC and lectured at Caltech.