Dr. Breathett will replace the inaugural director of the center, Rohan Dharmakumar, PhD, who was appointed the Vice Chair of Research for the IU School of Medicine Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences in November 2024.
“I am thankful for Dr. Dharmakumar’s significant contributions to advancing research in the division and am excited about the next chapter of the KCVRC under the leadership of Dr. Breathett,” said David M. Aronoff, MD, FIDSA, FAAM, FRCP, the John B. Hickam Professor of Medicine and Chair of the Department of Medicine.
“Dr. Breathett is an internationally-recognized physician-scientist who specializes in the care of patients with heart failure and for those needing cardiac transplantation,” Aronoff continued. “Dr. Breathett is an outstanding mentor and scholar. We are extremely fortunate to benefit from her vision and leadership in this role.”
Breathett has more than 15 years of experience in ground-breaking research, academic leadership and clinical care, and she is widely recognized for her research and clinical achievements. Her research portfolio is focused on equitable system delivery of evidence-based care for cardiovascular disease, particularly heart failure.
Breathett is a tenured Associate Professor of Medicine for IU School of Medicine; an advanced heart failure transplant cardiologist with the Advanced Heart Failure Mechanical Circulatory Support and Cardiac Transplantation team at IU Health; and the Director of the Cardiovascular Equity Research Program.
She has developed randomized controlled trials, outcomes studies, observational population studies, mixed-method studies, implementation science studies, and community interventions focused on reducing racial and gender disparities in cardiovascular disease, resulting in over 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts.
Breathett’s research has been published in high impact journals including JAMA, Circulation, JACC, JAMA Network Open, Circulation: Heart Failure, JACC: Heart Failure, and The American Journal of Medicine. Her works have received press acknowledgment in Reuters, MedPage Today, U.S. News & World Report, Business Insider and others. Since 2021, her work has been recognized each year with the top 10% most publications, top 10% most cited, and top 10% most press mentions by Doximity.
Breathett has been recognized with prestigious awards, and she has been invited to give over 150 national and international lectures as a grand rounds speaker, keynote, conference plenary speaker, panelist and more. She is chair of the national heart failure and transplant committee and chair of the national social determinants of health committee for the American Heart Association. She has previously chaired and still serves on multiple national committees for the American Heart Association, Heart Failure Society of America, and Association of Black Cardiologists.
She serves on multiple editorial boards and has served as Associate Editor for Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcome since 2020 and led the development of the Disparities Research Guidelines for the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association journals. She is a standing member of the NHLBI Clinical Trials Review Study Section.
Breathett’s research funding comes from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI). She is board certified in internal medicine, cardiology and advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology. As an advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist, her clinical work focuses on the prevention and treatment of advanced heart disease including longitudinal heart transplantation and ventricular assist device care.
She co-authored the 2021 update to the 2017 American College of Cardiology Expert Consensus Decision Pathway for Optimization of Heart Failure Treatment and vice-chaired the 2024 update to the 2020 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Clinical Performance and Quality Measures for Adults with Heart Failure.
The Krannert Cardiovascular Research Center tackles cardiovascular disease through radical innovative research with the goal of removing heart disease as the leading cause of death.Established in 2021, KCVRC aims to build on the legacy of more than 70 years of cardiovascular research at IU School of Medicine. Researchers at IU were pioneers in cardiac arrhythmias (implantable cardiac defibrillators), cardiac electrograms (simultaneous fetal and maternal ECG monitoring), and detecting pericardial effusion (buildup of fluid around the heart), among other diagnostic and therapeutic milestones in cardiovascular disease research.
KCVRC is propelling the field of cardiovascular research, ushering in a new era of a more technologically driven enterprise, where imaging, biomedical engineering, informatics, artificial intelligence and omics play a greater role in basic, translational and clinical cardiovascular research.
KCVRC has a footprint of over 20,000 square feet of laboratory and office space, and more than 30 faculty members with wide ranging expertise across multiple disciplines. The interdisciplinary research team at KCVRC is making significant advances in understanding, preventing and treating cardiovascular diseases, through translation of basic discoveries that will impact the health of people in Indiana and beyond.