Overview

Dr. A. Maziar Zafari is Professor of Medicine since 2011 and Chief of Cardiology at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center since 2007. He was born in 1962 in Heidelberg, Germany. After spending his childhood and adolescence in Iran, he returned to Germany in 1979 where he graduated from Hainberg Gymnasium in Gttingen. Dr. Zafari attended from 1981 to 1990 University of Cologne's (Universitt zu Kln) School of Medicine and College of Philososophy for his combined studies in medicine and history of medicine. Subsequently, he moved to the United States to complete his residency training in Internal Medicine/Primary Care at Yale University. During this period he spent three months at the National Institutes of Health, working in the research laboratory of Dr. William C. Roberts on the role of coronary calcium deposition in coronary atherosclerosis. From 1993 to 1994 he was Chief Medical Resident for the Yale University Primary Care Program and an Instructor at Yale School of Medicine. In 1994 he began a two-year research fellowship in Vascular Biology working in the laboratory of Dr. Kathy K. Griendling characterizing the role of the vascular NAD(P)H oxidase in angiotensin II-induced vascular growth, followed by two years of clinical training in General Cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine. In 1998 he joined the Cardiology Faculty at Emory University and the Atlanta VA Medical Center in the rank of Assistant Professor and focused on investigating the role of genetic markers in the development and progression of cardiovascular diseases. In 2004 Dr. Zafari was appointed Director of the Cardiovascular Training Program at Emory, and advanced to the rank of Associate Professor in 2005.

Dr. Zafari established his molecular cardiology laboratory focusing on the role of genetic markers in cardiovascular diseases. His research comprises the validation and discovery of genetic polymorphisms related to genes involved in oxidative stress, and their functional relationship with the development and progression of cardiovascular diseases. To accomplish this task, he has developed a databank of hundreds of patients with demographic, angiographic, genetic and cellular information to investigate the role of genetic polymorphisms and chronic infection in the development and severity of coronary atherosclerosis. Collaborations established with other clinical investigators and scientists in the Emory Division of Cardiology, as well as with investigators at the Rollins School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, and the Georgia Institute of Technology have resulted in funded research projects related to metabolic syndrome, the role of infections and genetic markers in coronary artery disease, and in publications and presentations at national and international conferences.

Since becoming a faculty member at Emory in 1998, Dr. Zafari has been on staff at the Division of Cardiology at the Atlanta VA Medical Center. He has actively participated in the expansion of the clinical enterprise at the VA Medical Center, where he performs cardiac catheterization, echocardiography and follows patients on the inpatient services as well as in the Heart Failure Clinics. As Chairman of the Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Committee at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, he has led a team of healthcare providers in comprehensive trials to improve clinical outcomes of patients suffering in-hospital cardiac arrest. These quality improvement trials have resulted in significant improvement in clinical outcomes, and have been cited in the International Emergency Cardiovascular Care and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Guidelines published by the America Heart Association and the European Society of Cardiology.

Dr. Zafari has been actively involved in teaching medical students in following courses and examinations: Sophomore Clinical Methods, Junior Oral Examinations at Grady Memorial Hospital and the Atlanta VA Medical Center, Current Mechanisms in Cardiovascular Disease: From Bench to the Bedside, and the M3 Teaching Course. He has mentored more than 40 residents and fellows in clinical and translational research, and has received teaching awards by cardiology fellows and the J. Willis Hurst Internal Medicine Residency Program at Emory. From 2003 to 2006 he served as the Series Editor for the Hospital Physician Cardiology Board Review Manuals, a bimonthly publication with a nationwide circulation of 20,000, which provided state-of-the-art reviews in various subjects in cardiovascular medicine. Dr Zafari has also coauthored two medical textbooks designed for medical students preparing for their final examinations in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. One review is now in its 10th edition and the other in its 2nd edition, both published in Germany. As Cardiovascular Training Program Director (2004-2013) he established a dedicated research track in clinical and translational research, and expanded subspecialty training in Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging, Heart Failure/Transplantation and in Adult Congenital Heart Disease.

Academic Appointment

• Adjunct Clinical Professor of Medicine, Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine
• Distinguished Physician, Emory University School of Medicine
• Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Emory University

Education

Research