Dr Eugene Braunwald, regarded by many as the father of modern cardiovascular medicine for his remarkable contribution to clinical cardiology, heart research and medical education, died on 22 April 2026, aged 96.
Dr Braunwald served as Distinguished Hersey Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and was the founding Chair of the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) Study Group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Over the course of his career, he also held key leadership roles, including Chief of Cardiology and Clinical Director at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. From 1972 to 1996, he chaired the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr Braunwald’s early research contributed massively to the understanding of heart function and heart failure. He and his team were the first to measure left ventricular ejection fraction and left ventricular dp/dt in patients, and to identify neurohumoral abnormalities in human heart failure. Together with Glenn Morrow, they recognised hypertrophic cardiomyopathy as a unique clinical entity in 1959. They realised that it is often an inherited condition, which can be benign, but it can also cause ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in young people, especially those engaged in vigorous sports. Their work on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy opened unexpected avenues for research and treatment of these conditions.
His achievements were widely recognised by institutions and associations worldwide. He received awards from the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the European Society of Cardiology. Dr Braunwald was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from University of Oxford and honorary doctorates from 23 other leading universities across three continents. Notably, he became the first cardiologist elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Nobel laureates in medicine have recognised him as the individual who has contributed the most to cardiology in recent years.
The International Society of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy (ISCP) had the honour to count Dr Braunwald among the distinguished speakers who took part in the 2019 ISCP Congress in Lugano, where he was awarded the Society’s Gold Medal.
A central figure at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr Braunwald was an extraordinarily prolific author with more than 1,800 scientific papers. He was editor of leading medical textbooks, among which Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine and Braunwald’s Heart Disease feature prominently.
His life story, as fascinating as his medical journey, reflects the willpower and determination of this pioneering clinical academic who touched the lives of so many colleagues, fellows, medical students and patients.
Until 1938, he lived with his family in a pleasant area of the First District of Vienna near the Danube Canal, went to a good school, and took piano and English lessons. “It was a wonderful life. I was too young to understand what was happening just across the border in Germany,” he told European Cardiology Review in 2019.1 That “idyllic” period ended on 12 March 1938, with the Anschluss of Austria, when Dr Braunwald was 8 years old.
On a Saturday morning in late July 1938, in an ordeal that lasted 2 days, he and his brother were taken from Vienna to the Swiss border. From Switzerland, they took a train to Paris, then another to Calais and later a ferry across the English Channel and a train to London. Dr Braunwald recalled when interviewed by European Cardiology Review that their status as refugees in the UK “saved our lives”.1 However, a bureaucratic issue forced them to move again. Austria had been annexed by Germany, not conquered, and as such they were “technically now German citizens, and therefore enemy aliens in the UK,” he explained.
The family then crossed the Atlantic and settled in Brooklyn, New York. Dr Braunwald finished grammar school in Brooklyn, attended Brooklyn Technical High School, and was planning to go into engineering. However, after a couple of years, his interest in engineering began to wane and he “felt that the human element was lacking”. This realisation led him into medicine, where, with the passage of time, he became one of the most influential cardiologists of all time.
When asked what drives young people to become top-level scientists, clinicians or academics, Dr Braunwald offered simple, but enduring, advice: “If you possess a genuine, burning curiosity, that passion will naturally guide you to communicate your ideas clearly – both in speech and in writing.” He suggested that without that inner drive, one might be better suited to a different path.
This is an important time in the history of cardiology, as with the passing of Eugene Braunwald, a defining era in modern cardiovascular medicine comes to a close. Yet the impact of his work, his wisdom and the vision he brought to the field will remain unabated for countless decades to come.
Prof Juan Carlos Kaski
Editor-in-Chief, European Cardiology Review, on behalf of the Chairperson and the Board of Directors of the International Society of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy.