Eric Topol

Eric J. Topol (born 1954) is an American cardiologist, geneticist, and digital medicine researcher. Before moving to Scripps in 2006, Topol served as chairman of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic (1991-2005) and founded the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. Topol was one of the first researchers to question the cardiovascular safety of rofecoxib (Vioxx), culminating in the drug's ultimate withdrawal from the market. Topol's advocacy on the subject led to what the New York Times described as an "unusually public dispute" with the Cleveland Clinic's leadership over ties between the academic institution and the pharmaceutical industry, ultimately leading to Topol's departure from the Clinic after his administrative position as head of the Clinic's academic program was abolished.

Topol is the Founder and Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, California. He also serves as the Chief Academic Officer for Scripps Health, a professor of Genomics at The Scripps Research Institute, and a Senior Consultant at the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases at Scripps Clinic. He is editor-in-chief of Medscape and theheart.org. In 2012, he published a book called The Creative Destruction of Medicine which examined the impact of both the genomic and wireless revolutions on the health care system. In 2013, he appeared on the Colbert Report and examined the host Stephen Colbert using several devices featured in his book. His most recent book The Patient Will See You Now, published in 2015, explores how smartphones, big data, and technology are combining to democratize health care.

In 2016, Topol was awarded a $207M grant from the NIH to lead a significant part of the Precision Medicine Initiative, a one million American prospective research program.

Topol's research career has been in two major areas: clinical development of new drugs and devices and genomics. Topol pioneered the development of many medications that are routinely used in medical practice including t-PA, Plavix, Angiomax, and ReoPro. He has led worldwide clinical trials in over 40 countries involving over 200,000 patients (First in series – GUSTO trials). His work in the genomics of heart attack has led to discovery of key genes (MEF2A deletion, Thrombospondin variants) which led to recognition by the American Heart Association top 10 research advances in 2001 and 2003. He has over 1000 original peer reviewed publications, and has edited over 30 books, including the Textbook of Interventional Cardiology (6th ed - Elsevier), and the Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine (3rd ed - Lippincott Williams & Wilkins).

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