Jeffrey E. Safitz MD, PhD

Dr. Saffitz received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University in 1978. He completed both a Residency in Anatomic Pathology and a Cardiovascular Research Fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. From 1982-1983 he was Visiting Fellow in Cardiac Pathology at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute with Dr. William Roberts. He then returned to Washington University on the faculty in the Departments of Pathology and Medicine (Cardiovascular Division) and rose through the ranks to become Paul and Ellen Lacy Professor of Pathology in 1999. In 2005 he was recruited to his current position in Boston.

Dr. Saffitz is a leading basic and translational investigator in the area of sudden cardiac death, arrhythmia mechanisms in arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathies, and cardiac myocyte electrical communication. His several decades of independent, federally funded research have yielded over 260 original contributions to the literature. His research has elucidated molecular and structural determinants of normal and abnormal intercellular coupling and defined the role of altered expression of connexins (gap junction channel proteins) and remodeling of gap junctions in the pathogenesis of lethal ventricular arrhythmias.