Jaume Marrugat

Biography

Key evidence of leadership capacity includes both qualitative and quantitative indicators. I have a long track record of bringing together effective scientific teams across national and disciplinary boundaries to address cutting-edge questions and a highly successful record of scientific production: 21,679 citations of more than 450 publications (≈44 citations/publication) and my h-index=67.

I received my MD (1980) and PhD (1990) from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where I became an associate professor of Preventive Medicine (1996-2007). My background includes 8 years of clinical and hospital management experience (1980-1988) and 6 years of research appointments at IMIM (www.imim.es), as a pre-doctoral fellow from 1986 to 1989 and as a post-doctoral investigator until 1992, when I was appointed to lead the current 43-person REGICOR Group. I am now a full-time senior researcher at IMIM, where from 2007 to 2013 I also directed the Research in Inflammatory and Cardiovascular Disorders Programme (164 investigators).
My multidisciplinary group explores the genetics of CV disease, collaborating in genome-wide association studies with MIGen project at The Broad Institute (Boston, MA) and currently in the study of epigenetic changes related to CAD (http://www.kathiresanlab.org/collaborators/myocardial-infarction-genetics-exome-sequencing-consortium/). This research has led to the identification of new genetic characteristics related to myocardial infarction published in NEJM, Nature, and Nature Genetics, among others. This line of research has led to patents commercialized based on the improvement of reclassification of risk functions with CV genetic information.

In 1980, I was a founding member of the REGICOR project, which in 1995-2005 recruited ~11,000 participants in population surveys and >3,000 consecutive acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients and compiled a biobank of DNA and plasma samples. The first-ever description of AMI population incidence in Spain was published by my team. Other large collaborative initiatives in Spain that I led or co-led include the IBERICA, DARIOS, FRESCO, PRIAMHO I and II, DESCARTES, MASCARA, and ATHOS studies.

I created, and since 2003 have chaired, the HERACLES Excellence Cardiovascular Research Network, bringing together 15 outstanding multidisciplinary Spanish research groups. In 2013 HERACLES joined the other two Spanish networks on CVD research to become the 7th Research programme, now under my coordination.

In collaboration with Framingham Heart Study researchers, I contributed “first-ever” adaptation and validation of the Framingham CVD risk function for Spain’s population. My group also participated in EUPHORIC, EUROLIVE, and AIRGENE EU projects. I led the EURHOBOP (www.eurhobop.eu) 2009-2013 and EUROTRACS 2013-2015 (www.eurotracs-project.eu) Eurpean projects. In other international consortia, I analysed prognosis biomarkers after AMI in the SIESTA, MASCARA, and European Heart Survey and the trends in AMI incidence in the AMITIE project.

I serve on the editorial board or review manuscripts for outstanding international journals (e.g., JACC, Circulation, IJE, EHJ, Heart, REC, ERJ, JECH, JCVR). I was a reviewer for the Research Framework Programmes V & VI, and for ERC Starting Grants in 2012-2020. I am an expert evaluation consultant for the French INSERM, for the Italian Departamento di Epidemiologia de la Regione del Lazio in Rome, and have served on the evaluating board for 12 dissertations and doctoral theses in Europe. I was a member of the Evaluation Board for Cardiovascular Research Projects of Spain’s agency for health research funding, Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria FIS 1998-2013, the Spanish CIBER structures, 2010 to date, the Spanish National Agency for Scientific Evaluation (ANEP) 2000 to date, and the Spanish Society of Cardiology, among others. I am an expert consultant for the Spanish Ministry of Health, and for the Catalan Agency for Health Quality Assessment.

I am the co-author of 4 patents, 3 of them under commercial exploitation.

Key words / short description of my career interests and research lines: Cardiovascular diseases, mechanism of arterial hypertension, isquemic heart disease, incidence, factors and cardiovascular risk functions, genetics, cardiovascular epidemiology and population genetics