Physician scientist James F. Martin, MD, PhD, Director of the Cardiomyocyte Renewal Laboratory at The Texas Heart Institute and Vice Chairman of the Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Baylor College of Medicine has been elected to the Association of American Physicians (AAP). The AAP is an honorary medical society of America’s leading physician scientists who are pioneers in their respective fields and have made enduring, impactful contributions to improve patient health care.

Dr. Martin is a globally recognized leader in the areas of development, cardiac biology, and regeneration. His landmark studies on the Hippo pathway in heart size regulation yielded the insight that the Hippo pathway is an endogenous inhibitor of heart muscle regeneration, revealing new avenues for heart failure treatment. He has recently demonstrated the feasibility of using gene therapy that targets the Hippo pathway to induce cardiomyocyte renewal and improve cardiac function in a large animal model of myocardial infarction. In addition, Dr. Martin’s use of single-cell genomics to comprehensively study pediatric congenital heart disease has provided key insight into the connection between underlying gene expression patterns and the resultant disruption of heart function.

The AAP was founded in 1885 by the Canadian physician Sir William Osler and six other distinguished physicians of his era for the advancement of scientific and practical medicine. Election to the AAP is an honor extended to physicians with outstanding credentials in basic or translational biomedical research and is limited to 70 persons per year. The AAP includes about 1200 active members and 700 emeritus and honorary members.

Dr. Martin will be introduced as a new member of the AAP on Saturday, April 22, 2023, at the Swissôtel Chicago as part of a joint meeting of the AAP, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the American Physician Scientists Association held in Chicago, Illinois.

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Zhang, Sui & Liu, Shijie & Leach, John & Li, Ke & Perin, Emerson & Martin, James. (2022). Gene Therapy Knockdown of Hippo Signaling Resolves Arrhythmic Events in Pigs After Myocardial Infarction. Circulation. 146. 1558-1560. 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.059972.

Hill, M.C., Kadow, Z.A., Long, H. et al. Integrated multiomic characterization of congenital heart disease. Nature (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04989-3