UB cardiologist is appointed to prestigious review committee that advises directors of NHLBI and NIH

BUFFALO, N.Y. — John M. Canty Jr., MD, the Albert and Elizabeth Rekate Professor of Medicine in the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and UB’s chief of cardiovascular medicine, has been appointed to the Heart, Lung and Blood Program Project Review Committee of the National Institutes of Health. He will serve on the committee for four years.

The Heart, Lung and Blood Program Project Review Committee is responsible for advising the directors of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Institutes of Health concerning programs and activities in the areas of heart, blood vessel, lung and blood diseases, sleep disorders and blood resource management. The committee provides an initial review of grant applications for program projects and makes recommendations for support.

Canty is a physician-scientist whose career has focused on translational cardiovascular research and noninvasive cardiology. A faculty member of the UB Department of Medicine since 1983, he also is a practicing cardiologist at the VA Western New York Healthcare System and at Gates Vascular Institute, and sees patients at UBMD, the physician practice plan of the UB medical school. He has been recognized by Best Doctors in America since 1998.

Canty has headed UB’s division of cardiovascular medicine since 2006, leading the university’s cardiovascular medicine faculty; fostering expansion of programs in education, research and clinical care; and integrating the university’s cardiology sections at the VA Western New York Healthcare System, Erie County Medical Center and Kaleida Health.

He was one of the earliest occupants in UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC). Located above Kaleida Health’s Gates Vascular Institute (GVI), this unique, 170,000-square-foot research facility on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus allows UB’s physician-scientists to perform cutting-edge research at the CTRC while providing state-of-the-art care for patients at the GVI.

Canty’s research has focused on developing bench-to-bedside personalized treatments for heart disease patients, a prime example of the translational research that results from fostering interactions among cardiovascular specialists, basic scientists and biomedical engineers.

In 2003, he was elected to membership in the prestigious Association of University Cardiologists. He received the UB medical school’s Stockton Kimball Award in 2005, which honors a faculty member’s academic accomplishments and worldwide recognition as an investigator and researcher. He is immediate past-president of the Association for Professors of Cardiology, an organization comprised of academic cardiology division heads from medical schools in the United States.

Canty is a recipient of a 2010 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. A fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the American College of Physicians, he has served on numerous peer-review and data safety-monitoring committees for the National Institutes of Health. He also serves on the editorial boards of several leading cardiovascular journals.

A Buffalo native and a graduate of the UB medical school, Canty lives with his family in Snyder.