Schottenstein Prize in Cardiovascular Sciences

The Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Prize in Cardiovascular Sciences provides national and international recognition and support to those at the forefront of cardiovascular sciences. The recipient will be a leader in cardiovascular sciences, a physician or biomedical scientist who has made extraordinary and sustained leadership contributions to improving health care.

Established by a $2 million endowment from humanitarian philanthropists Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein, the prize is chartered to The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Heart and Vascular Center, and will be awarded biennially. The Schottenstein Laureate will also receive an honorarium of $100,000 (US).

2025 Prize Laureate

Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD

Dr. Wu and his team focus on using human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to better understand cardiovascular diseases and accelerate the discovery of drugs to treat them. Through a concept he calls “clinical trial in a dish,” Wu and his team have created iPSCs from more than 2,500 patients. The process involves converting patients’ blood or skin cells into iPSCs, which can then become any cell type in the body, including heart, brain, liver and muscle cells. Using this approach, Wu and his team have been able to model different types of diseases so they can understand how they affect patients and how to better treat them. His lab has also championed the adoption of “New Alternative Methods” (or NAMs) such as organoids, tissue-on-chips and microphysiological systems to reduce the reliance on traditional animal models.

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Past Winners of the Schottenstein Prize

Richard Kitsis, MD

2023 Prize Laureate

Richard Kitsis, MD, is a professor of Medicine and Cell Biology, where he holds the Dr. Gerald and Myra Dorros Chair in Cardiovascular Disease. He also serves as the Director of the Wilf Family Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medicine in New York City. His laboratory has delineated fundamental mechanisms of cell death and roles of cell death in heart disease. This work has established that regulated forms of cell death are primarily responsible for heart damage during myocardial infarction, and has delineated novel molecular mechanisms that have provided the basis for drug development.

Mark Anderson, MD, PhD

2021 Prize Laureate

A renowned scholar, physician and caregiver, Anderson's research, commitment to education and medical leadership have earned international recognition. He is a leading expert on the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure, conducting research focused on the role of the calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) in heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias, which are a common cause of sudden cardiac death. In a seminal 2008 study, his team found that CaMKII could be activated by the oxidization of the amino acid methionine, allowing the protein to sustain its activity even without the presence of calcium or calmodulin. This mechanism, and its activation by angiotensin II-induced oxidation, can lead to cell death in cardiomyocytes, while later work showed that oxidized CaMKII contributes to atrial fibrillation, heart failure and asthma. His work, most recently funded by an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, has continued to explore the potential for targeting oxidized CaMKII in treating atrial fibrillation and heart failure without inadvertently inhibiting the molecule's critical role in the brain.

Dan Roden, MD

2019 Prize Laureate

Dan Roden, MD, is at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he serves as a professor of Medicine, Pharmacology and Biomedical Informatics and as senior vice president for Personalized Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. After serving as chief of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology for 12 years, he was tasked in 2006 with leading Vanderbilt’s efforts in personalized medicine. He’s been principal investigator for the Vanderbilt sites of the Pharmacogenomics Research Network since 2001 and of the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics Network since 2007.

Helen Hobbs, MD

2017 Prize Laureate

Helen Hobbs, MD, is a professor of Internal Medicine and Molecular Genetics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She is co-director of the Hobbs-Cohen Lab in the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development. Since 2002, she has been a Howard Hughes Investigator. Dr. Hobbs was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2004 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2007, and was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in 2015 and the Passano Award (with Jonathan Cohen) in 2016. She is the Philip O'Bryan Montgomery Jr., MD, Distinguished Chair in Developmental Biology, and the Eugene McDermott Distinguished Chair for the Study of Human Growth and Development.

Roberto Bolli, MD, FAHA

2015 Prize Laureate

Roberto Bolli, MD, FAHA, is professor of Medicine, Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He holds the Jewish Hospital Heart and Lung Institute Distinguished Chair in Cardiology. He is the executive Jewish Hospital Heart and Lung Institute Distinguished Chair in Cardiology; executive vice chair of the Department of Medicine; director of the Institute of Molecular Cardiology; and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

Garret FitzGerald, MD

2013 Prize Laureate

Garret FitzGerald, MD, is the McNeil Professor in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he chairs the Department of Pharmacology and directs the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics.

Christine Seidman, MD

2011 Prize Laureate

Christine Seidman, MD, is a professor in the departments of Medicine and Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she is also the Thomas W. Smith Professor of Medicine.

Pascal Goldschmidt, MD

2009 Prize Laureate

Pascal Goldschmidt, MD, was the inaugural recipient of the Schottenstein Prize. He is a cardiologist and cardiovascular researcher, and former dean of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. Until January 2016, he also served as chief executive officer (CEO) of the University of Miami Health System. He is currently president and CEO of American Healthcare System, European Care Global and Alzady International.

Eligibility and award details

This prestigious prize provides national and international recognition to a physician or biomedical scientist who has made extraordinary and sustained leadership contributions to improving health care; or who has successfully pursued innovative biomedical research with demonstrated translational beneﬁts to patient care. Those honored will be practitioners and/or scientists whose accomplishments and contributions have taken place over a career of dedicated and focused scientiﬁc discovery.

All nominations must be received by April 5, 2027. Please note that by accepting the award, the 2027 Schottenstein Prize Laureate will agree to attend a two-day series of scheduled events including presentations and research recognition ceremony(s) at The Ohio State University.

2027 Schottenstein Prize nomination process

The nomination process is a two-step process. No nomination will be considered unless both steps have been completed.

Complete and submit the nomination form (available fall 2026) about the nominee and the nominator.
These items must be sent for the nominee to be considered:
*Note that we may contact the nominator for additional reference materials after the nominations have been reviewed.
- A letter from the nominator describing the primary reasons by which the nominee merits consideration for the prize. Relevant criteria might include scientiﬁc innovation, creativity, leadership, education, dedication, and the importance of the nominee’s work to the ﬁeld of cardiovascular research. Consideration will also be given to the nominee’s role as mentor of young researchers and/or clinicians.
- Nominee’s curriculum vitae

For questions about the 2027 Prize nomination process, please reach out to Dana.Mack@osumc.edu.

About Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein

Jay and Jeanie Schottensteins In 2008, Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein endowed $2 million to The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center to create the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Prize in Cardiovascular Sciences. As Ohio natives, Jay and Jeanie provided the prize to further establish the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center as a leader in cardiovascular care at a global level.

With an extensive record of charitable giving to local, national and international causes, the Schottensteins ensure decades of cardiovascular excellence at Ohio State with this prize that honors those who have made extraordinary contributions to improving the field of heart and vascular research and patient care.

Jay & Jeanie Schottenstein Prize in Cardiovascular Sciences