Art Wallace, M.D. PhD

Arthur Wallace has spent the last thirty years focused on prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. His initial work began with methods to use CT scans to image coronary anatomy and ventricular function. He then studied autonomic control of the vasculature. At UCSF he has continued to focus on cardiovascular research. The primary research focus is in the prevention of perioperative myocardial infarctions conducting numerous clinical trials of anti-ischemic agents. Dr. Wallace was a co-investigator on the initial perioperative beta blocker study which demonstrated a reduction in long term mortality.

He then was PI of a clinical study of the alpha-2 agonist clonidine and demonstrated a reduction in both 30-day and 2-years perioperative mortality. Since the completion of these clinical studies the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology have made perioperative beta blockade a level-1 standard of care. Dr. Wallace then set up a program to assist hospitals and hospital systems implement perioperative beta blocker programs designed to reduce perioperative morbidity and mortality. Dr. Wallace has conducted four large scale epidemiologic studies of perioperative risk identifying a number of practice patterns that increased morbidity and mortality. Dr. Wallace has a long standing research collaboration with Dr. Mark Ratcliffe, a cardiac surgeon and the chief of surgery at the VA San Francisco, and has been an investigator on Dr. Ratcliffe's NIH grants for the last 15 years.  His work may also be seen at www.cardiacengineering.com