Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD, is Director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and the Simon H. Stertzer, MD, Professor of Medicine and Radiology. Dr. Wu received his medical degree from Yale. He completed his medicine internship, residency and cardiology fellowship training at UCLA followed by a PhD (Molecular & Medical Pharmacology) in the UCLA STAR program. His clinical activities involve adult congenital heart disease and cardiovascular imaging.

His lab works on biological mechanisms of patient-specific and disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The main goals are to (i) understand cardiovascular disease mechanisms, (ii) accelerate drug discovery, (iii) develop “clinical trial in a dish” concept, and (iv) implement precision medicine for prevention and treatment of cardiovascular patients. His lab uses a combination of genomics, stem cells, cellular & molecular biology, physiological testing, and molecular imaging technologies to better understand molecular and pathological processes. Dr. Wu has published >350 manuscripts with H-index of 94 on Google scholar. Among his trainees, >25 of them are principal investigators in the US or abroad.

Dr. Wu has received numerous awards, including National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award, NIH Roadmap Transformative Award, American Heart Association (AHA) Innovative Research Award, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) given out by President Obama, AHA Established Investigator Award, Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Innovation in Regulatory Science Award, AHA Merit Award, and AHA Distinguished Scientist Award. Dr. Wu serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Keystone Symposia, FDA Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee, AHA National Board of Directors, Chair of the AHA Basic Cardiovascular Science Council, and Chair of the AHA National Research Committee.

Dr. Wu is an elected member of American Society of Clinical Investigators (ASCI), Association of University Cardiologists (AUC), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), American Association of Physicians (AAP), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and National Academy of Medicine (NAM).