Canty named SUNY Distinguished Professor

UB physician-scientist John M. Canty Jr. has been named a SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system.

He was one of 18 SUNY faculty members appointed a Distinguished Professor, Distinguished Teaching Professor or Distinguished Service Professor by the SUNY Board of Trustees at its meeting earlier this month.

The rank of Distinguished Professor is an order above full professorship and has three co-equal designations: Distinguished Professor, Distinguished Service Professor and Distinguished Teaching Professor.

The Distinguished Professorship recognizes and honors individuals who have achieved national or international prominence in their fields.

Canty, the Albert and Elizabeth Rekate Professor of Medicine in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and UB’s chief of cardiovascular medicine, has focused his career on translational cardiovascular research and noninvasive cardiology. His research has impacted millions of patients with severe ischemic cardiomyopathy.

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.

As head of UB’s division of cardiovascular medicine since 2006, he leads the university’s cardiovascular medicine faculty; fosters expansion of programs in education, research and clinical care; and integrates 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 residents of UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC). Located above Kaleida Health’s Gates Vascular Institute (GVI), this research facility 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.

His work, which has been recognized internationally, has led to novel approaches to repair diseased heart muscle and grow new blood vessels, as well as to better identify patients at risk of developing sudden cardiac arrest.

A member of the prestigious Association of University Cardiologists, he is a 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 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, and the UB medical school’s Stockton Kimball Award, which honors a faculty member’s academic accomplishments and worldwide recognition as an investigator and researcher. He was honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award from the UB Alumni Association in 2008.

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.