Kovács elected to Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Cardiologist recognized for contributions to cardiac biophysics
Kovács
Sándor J. Kovács, PhD, MD, a professor of medicine and of cell biology & physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been elected an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Also an adjunct professor of physics and of biomedical engineering, Kovács is being honored for his outstanding contributions to the field of cardiology, especially in the areas of cardiovascular physiology and biophysics.
Kovács, who was born in Budapest, Hungary, is the founding director of the Cardiovascular Biophysics Laboratory at the School of Medicine. He and his research group combine aspects of engineering, physics, physiology, clinical medicine and the biomedical sciences to solve basic and applied problems in understanding heart function and cardiovascular disease. The goal is to improve diagnosis and therapy for cardiovascular conditions.
Kovács, a recipient of an honorary doctoral degree from Lund University in Sweden, is known for having developed an approach based on the laws of motion to assess the diastolic — or filling — function of the heart. The new methods Kovács has developed make use of multimodal imaging — including echocardiography and MRI — of the heart. The motion-based model accurately obtains the physiologic determinants of the early, rapid-filling phase of the left ventricle, thereby quantifying the presence and severity of disease.
