Dr. Wendy Post is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. She is a preventive cardiologist and an internationally recognized leader in cardiovascular disease epidemiology research. She has made seminal contributions to our understanding of subclinical atherosclerosis,…
more cardiovascular disease risk stratification, and genetics. Dr. Post is the principal investigator for the Hopkins Field Center for the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), where she has made numerous impactful scientific contributions. Perhaps her most seminal genetics work, as the leader of the international CHARGE consortium extracoronary calcium working group, was the discovery that lipoprotein(a) levels and common genetic variants in LPA lead to aortic valve calcification and aortic stenosis, published in the NEJM. These results will hopefully lead to much needed treatments to retard the progression of calcification to prevent clinical aortic stenosis. More recently Dr. Post has established herself as a scientific leader in the understanding of the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease in HIV patients. Using coronary CT angiography, she found that HIV infected men have more coronary atherosclerosis than uninfected men. The plaque is frequently non-calcified and postulated to be more vulnerable to rupture. This work has impacted the medical community who are advised to be more vigilant in screening HIV patients for modifiable cardiovascular disease risk factors. Dr. Post had also described factors that contribute to this heightened risk in HIV patients including immunodeficiency, manifested as low nadir CD4+ T cell counts, and increased epicardial fat, lower adiponectin levels, Hepatic C co-infection, and greater monocyte activation.
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