This year’s ARCS Scientist of the Year dinner will honor esteemed physician Eric Topol, a Scripps Health cardiologist who unabashedly declares his love of gadgets. Topol’s extraordinary work has made him a major figure in the field of science, a worthy honoree who follows in the footsteps of such luminaries as Dean Kamen, J. Craig Venter, Dean Ornish, Irwin Jacobs, Gail Naughton, Sally Ride, and many other iconic figures.
Topol attended medical school at the University of Rochester, and then received a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, where he became the first doctor to administer t-PA, the medication that breaks down blood clots, to a human patient. He also helped develop Angiomax and participated in conducting trials that led to Food and Drug Administration approval of Plavix. Topol became chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic at age 36. He helped to the remove Vioxx from the market in 2004. He also possesses phenomenal fundraising skills. For example, he helped obtain a $100 million gift from the Lerner family, making possible the creation of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine in 2002. The Scripps Translational Science Institute, of which Topol is director, was awarded $20 million from the National Institutes of Health in 2008. In 2009, Topol co-founded the West Wireless Health Institute in La Jolla, largely due to a $100 million gift from Gary and Mary West. The same year, GQ Magazine featured him as one of 11 “Rock Stars of Science.”
This gifted medical scientist perseveres in his search for new information, always looking to the future. Based on what he had learned so far, and true to form, Topol stirred the pot in 2012 when he published a consumer-focused book The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. The book urges "digital doctoring" of humans who will be equipped with small digital monitoring devices that will measure all sorts of bodily functions and then send data to smartphones. Topol is also an enthusiastic supporter of use of information from the field of genetics. Biosensors and genetics will allow human beings to be digitized and, therefore, to have medical treatment customized. He wants to digitize humans. Clearly, Eric Topol loves gadgets.
The 2013 Scientist of the Year Dinner will be held on April 4 at the Hilton San Diego Resort & Spa, from 6-10pm. Cost is $90 per person. For questions contact dinner chair Mary Fitz. (619.298.7193, www.arcsfoundation.org/san_diego)
Photography by Stuart Hartley
