Dr. Paul A Gurbel is an interventional cardiologist who has been in clinical practice in Baltimore since 1990. He received his undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University and MD at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He completed Internal Medicine residency at Duke University and completed fellowships in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and in Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology at Duke University where he was the Chief Resident in Internal Medicine. In 1990 he was recruited by the University of Maryland to institute their interventional cardiology training program and was their first Director of Interventional Cardiology. Since 1997, he is the Director of Cardiovascular Research, and the Director of the Sinai Center for Thrombosis Research and Drug Development at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. His research focused on defining the effects of antiplatelet agents, antiplatelet agent development, and understanding the relation of platelet reactivity to ischemic event occurrence in patients undergoing stenting. The Center became recognized as one of the world’s leaders in translational thrombosis research, antiplatelet agent development and personalized antiplatelet therapy. His group’s research provided the solid rationale for new antiplatelet agent development and their implementation into clinical practice. His team’s findings have been incorporated in the practice guidelines of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and European Society of Cardiology. One major achievement was their contribution to the development of the antiplatelet agent, ticagrelor. This drug is now available worldwide to treat patients with high risk cardiovascular disease. The pharmacodynamic properties of ticagrelor were defined by research conducted at Sinai and are included in the FDA prepared labelling for the drug. His lab has also extensively investigated the effects of aspirin and interactions between aspirin and other drugs. His lab pioneered the personalized antiplatelet therapy concept based on phenotypic and genetic analyses.

Currently Dr. Gurbel is the Director of Cardiovascular Research, and the Director of the Sinai Center for Thrombosis Research and Drug Development at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. His faculty appointments are at the Johns Hopkins University and Duke University where he is Professor of Medicine. He is certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease, and Interventional Cardiology by the American Board of Internal Medicine. On February 19, 2016 he was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa from the Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland, for outstanding academic achievements in the field of thrombosis research. In 2022, he was awarded Distinguished Alumni of Johns Hopkins University. He serves on the editorial boards for various journals and has been advisory board member of many pharmaceutical companies. His concepts and research results have been published in thousands of abstracts, manuscripts, monographs, books and book chapters and he has authored over 550 articles in peer-reviewed journals.