The University of Vermont College of Medicine has announced that cardiologist and Professor of Medicine David Schneider, M.D., has been appointed director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI). The director of cardiology in the department of medicine and medical director of cardiology at Fletcher Allen Health Care, Schneider will succeed CVRI founding director Burton Sobel, M.D., who passed away in spring 2013.
Recruited to UVM/Fletcher Allen in 1994, Schneider’s innovative discoveries have helped to better determine bleeding risks after invasive procedures and reduce the incidence of dangerous clotting. He has an active clinical practice and robust research program with over 145 publications, editorials and book chapters, and holds three U.S. patents for his development of methods that address issues involving platelets – components of blood that assist with clotting.
The CVRI, which was launched in 2002, is dedicated to gaining a better understanding of the causes and consequences of cardiovascular disease through a wide range of investigations, from the molecular to the patient level. Today, the CVRI engages nearly 30 investigators across 16 specialty sections, including cardiovascular imaging, coronary artery disease, diabetes and heart disease and interventional cardiology. Milestones include multiple publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals on the nature of increased platelet reactivity in patients with coronary artery disease, molecular biological mechanisms underlying diabetic vasculopathy, pathogenetic factors accelerating cardiomyopathy in diabetes, and the potential of embryonic and bone marrow-derived stem cells in the treatment of myocardial infarction (heart attack). The CVRI was also instrumental in helping to establish the regional New England, New York and Quebec Regional Clinical Center of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Heart Failure Research Network, a national consortium designed to improve the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure.
Schneider is a Fellow of both the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. He has served on steering committees and boards for numerous nationwide clinical trials, was Councilor for the Society of Experimental Biology, and a member of several panels and working groups for the NHLBI of the National Institutes of Health. He is the associate editor of the journal Coronary Artery Disease, and serves in an editorial role for the American Journal of Cardiology, Current Cardiology Reviews and US Cardiology. He has earned teaching awards four times for his work with fellows in the Cardiovascular Training Program, and is a sought-after mentor by medical students, residents, junior faculty and colleagues.
A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Schneider earned his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati. Following a residency in internal medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, where he also served as chief resident, he subsequently completed research and clinical fellowships in cardiology at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. He and his family reside in Shelburne, Vt.