President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer,
University of Ottawa Heart Institute

Robert Roberts received his M.D. from Dalhousie University and completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Fellowship in Cardiology at the University of Toronto.  Funded by a Canadian Heart Foundation Scholarship he pursued research in enzymology and cardiac metabolism at the University of California, San Diego, following which he was Director of the Cardiac Care Unit at Barnes Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine, Washington University.  In 1982, he accepted a position as Chief of Cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine and became Professor of Medicine with joint appointments in the departments of Cell Biology and Molecular Physiology and Biophysics.  On April 1, 2004, Dr. Roberts was appointed President and CEO of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and Director of The Ruddy Canadian Cardiovascular Genetics Centre.  He also retains an adjunct Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

His early research focused on quantification and diagnosis of ischemic heart disease.  He developed the first quantitative assay for plasma MB CK in 1974 and the first radioimmunoassay for MB CK, based on an antibody to the B-subunit in 1976, which was also the first RIA for an isoenzyme.  MBCK remained the standard for the diagnosis of myocardial infarction throughout the world for more than three decades.  Today all markers for myocardial infarction including the troponins are antibody based. 

On moving to Baylor, Dr. Robert's basic research effort focused on the application of the techniques of recombinant DNA to cardiac growth and molecular genetics of cardiovascular disease. These efforts would subsequently earn him the title of one of the founders of molecular cardiology.  On moving to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, he founded The Ruddy Canadian Cardiovascular Genetics Centre.  Utilizing a genome wide scan, they identified the first major locus for coronary artery disease on Chromosome 9p21.