J. Michael Gaziano MD
Adjunct Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine
72 E. Concord Street michael.gaziano@va.gov
Sections
Cardiovascular Medicine
Biography
Dr. Michael J. Gaziano, MD, MPH is an internationally recognized chronic disease epidemiologist and trialist. He received his MD from Yale Medical School and his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.
At the VA Boston Healthcare System, he is one of the Director the Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC), a national epidemiology and trial center funded by CSR&D where he directs the epidemiology research center. He is national PI for the Million Veteran Program (MVP), a large project designed to enroll a million veterans into a large observational cohort with stored biospecimens. He also serves as the director of the Boston Geriatric Research and Education Center (GRECC). At VA Boston he runs a preventive cardiology program with an associated fellowship. He is the Chief of the Division of Aging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he is principal investigator for the ongoing Physicians' Health Study (PHS) II study, a large-scale trial of vitamins in the prevention of chronic disease. The Physicians’ Health Study cohort is comprised of 29,000 physicians who have been followed for up to 28 years. He is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Gaziano’s research interests include the epidemiology of chronic diseases, with a particular interest in the roles that individual lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, smoking), metabolic factors (obesity, high cholesterol, and hypertension), and biochemical and genetic markers play on the risk of coronary artery disease and stroke. Also of interest is the impact that vascular disease has on other organ systems. Recently, Dr. Gaziano has initiated a number of research projects to investigate the diverse nature of atherosclerosis. While atherosclerosis plaques form only in certain large and medium-sized vessels, the process of atherogenesis affects arteries of all sizes. For example, renal dysfunction, cognitive decline and osteoporosis-related fractures have been linked to various cardiovascular disease risk factors, suggesting a role for small vessel disease in vascular dementia, in abnormal bone remodeling and chronic renal disease. These projects are intended to explore the extent to which atherosclerotic disease in small vessels leads to these and other chronic conditions.
He has published over 350 original reports, reviews, book chapters, and books. He teaches advanced epidemiology and has mentored over 50 trainees. He is a contributing editor for JAMA.
Websites
Education
MD, Yale University School of Medicine
MPH, Harvard School of Public Health
BA, West Virginia University
Publications
Pathak GA, Koller D, Cabrera-Mendoza B, Nono Djotsa ABS, Wendt FR, De Lillo A, Friligkou E, He J, Kouakou MR, Duong LM, Vahey J, Steele L, Quaden R, Harrington KM, Ahmed ST, Gaziano JM, Concato J, Zhao H, Radhakrishnan K, Gelernter J, Gifford E, Aslan M, Helmer DA, Hauser ER, Polimanti R. Unraveling the genetics of gulf war illness in diverse participants enrolled in the million veteran program. Hum Mol Genet. 2025 May 14. PMID: 40366759.
Published on 4/16/2025Dorantes-Gilardi R, Ivey KL, Costa L, Matty R, Cho K, Gaziano JM, Barabási AL. Quantifying the impact of biobanks and cohort studies. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Apr 22; 122(16):e2427157122. PMID: 40238453.
Published on 4/11/2025Chandrashekar M, Goethert I, Haque MIU, McMahon B, Dhaubhadel S, Knight K, Erdos J, Reagan D, Taylor C, Kuzmak P, Gaziano JM, McAllister E, Costa L, Ho YL, Cho K, Tamang S, Fodeh-Jarad S, Ovchinnikova OS, Justice AC, Hinkle J, Danciu I. Domain Shift Analysis in Chest Radiographs Classification in a Veterans Healthcare Administration Population. J Imaging Inform Med. 2025 Apr 11. PMID: 40216674.
Published on 4/1/2025Li G, Gerlovin H, Figueroa Muñiz MJ, Wise JK, Madenci AL, Robins JM, Aslan M, Cho K, Gaziano JM, Lipsitch M, Casas JP, Hernán MA, Dickerman BA. Erratum: Comparison of the Test-negative Design and Cohort Design With Explicit Target Trial Emulation for Evaluating COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness. Epidemiology. 2025 May 01; 36(3):e11. PMID: 40173425.
Published on 4/1/2025Wittes J, DeMets DL, Kim K, Maki DG, Pfeffer MA, Gaziano JM, Kitsantas P, Hennekens CH, Wood SK. Aspirin in primary prevention: Undue reliance on an uninformative trial led to misinformed clinical guidelines. Clin Trials. 2025 Apr 01; 17407745251324866. PMID: 40165541.
Published on 4/1/2025Larsen JR, Zheng C, La J, Wu JT, Kelley M, Gaziano JM, Brophy M, Do NV, Kim DH, Driver JA, DuMontier C, Fillmore NR. Multimorbidity and Its Impact in Older U.S. Veterans Newly Treated for Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2025 Apr; 22(4):598-608. PMID: 39680869.
Published on 3/19/2025Johannsen AL, Danowski ME, Sitter KE, Preys CL, Gerety HL, Brunette CA, Christensen KD, Gaziano JM, Knowles JW, Muralidhar S, Sturm AC, Sun YV, Whitbourne SB, Yi T, Vassy JL. Primary care providers' perspectives on receiving opportunistic genomic results from a national study: The Million Veteran Program Return Of Actionable Results (MVP-ROAR) Study. Genet Med. 2025 Mar 19; 27(6):101416. PMID: 40121538.
Published on 3/6/2025Roselli C, Surakka I, Olesen MS, Sveinbjornsson G, Marston NA, Choi SH, Holm H, Chaffin M, Gudbjartsson D, Hill MC, Aegisdottir H, Albert CM, Alonso A, Anderson CD, Arking DE, Arnar DO, Barnard J, Benjamin EJ, Braunwald E, Brumpton B, Campbell A, Chami N, Chasman DI, Cho K, Choi EK, Christophersen IE, Chung MK, Conen D, Crijns HJ, Cutler MJ, Czuba T, Damrauer SM, Dichgans M, Dörr M, Dudink E, Duong T, Erikstrup C, Esko T, Fatkin D, Faul JD, Ferreira M, Freitag DF, Ganesh SK, Gaziano JM, Geelhoed B, Ghouse J, Gieger C, Giulianini F, Graham SE, Gudnason V, Guo X, Haggerty C, Hayward C, Heckbert SR, Hveem K, Ito K, Johnson R, Jukema JW, Jurgens SJ, Kääb S, Kane JP, Kany S, Kardia SLR, Kavousi M, Khurshid S, Kamanu FK, Kirchhof P, Kleber ME, Knight S, Komuro I, Krieger JE, Launer LJ, Li D, Lin H, Lin HJ, Loos RJF, Lotta L, Lubitz SA, Lunetta KL, Macfarlane PW, Magnusson PKE, Malik R, Mantineo H, Marcus GM, März W, McManus DD, Melander O, Melloni GEM, Meyre PB, Miyazawa K, Mohanty S, Monfort LM, Müller-Nurasyid M, Nafissi NA, Natale A, Nazarian S, Ostrowski SR, Pak HN, Pang S, Pedersen OB, Pedersen NL, Pereira AC, Pirruccello JP, Preuss M, Psaty BM, Pullinger CR, Rader DJ, Rämö JT, Ridker PM, Rienstra M, Risch L, Roden DM, Rotter JI, Sabatine MS, Schunkert H, Shah SH, Shim J, Shoemaker MB, Simonson B, Sinner MF, Smit RAJ, Smith JA, Smith NL, Smith JG, Soliman EZ, Sørensen E, Sotoodehnia N, Strbian D, Stricker BH, Teder-Laving M, Sun YV, Thériault S, Thorolfsdottir RB, Thorsteinsdottir U, Tveit A, van der Harst P, van Meurs J, Wang B, Weiss S, Wells QS, Weng LC, Wilson PW, Xiao L, Yang PS, Yao J, Yoneda ZT, Zeller T, Zeng L, Zhao W, Zhou X, Zöllner S, Ruff CT, Bundgaard H, Willer C, Stefansson K, Ellinor PT. Meta-analysis of genome-wide associations and polygenic risk prediction for atrial fibrillation in more than 180,000 cases. Nat Genet. 2025 Mar; 57(3):539-547. PMID: 40050429.
Published on 2/8/2025Nguyen XT, Li Y, Nyaeme MS, Panigrahy N, Houghton S, Ivey KL, Shiekh S, Willett WC, Hu FB, Gaziano JM, Wilson PWF, Cho K, Djousse L. Dietary Cholesterol and Myocardial Infarction in the Million Veteran Program. J Am Heart Assoc. 2025 Feb 18; 14(4):e036819. PMID: 39921525.
Published on 2/6/2025Rasooly D, Giambartolomei C, Peloso GM, Dashti H, Ferolito BR, Golden D, Horimoto ARVR, Pietzner M, Farber-Eger EH, Wells QS, Bini G, Proietti G, Tartaglia GG, Kosik NM, Wilson PWF, Phillips LS, Munroe PB, Petersen SE, Cho K, Gaziano JM, Leach AR, Whittaker J, Langenberg C, Aung N, Sun YV, Pereira AC, Casas JP, Joseph J. Large-scale multi-omics identifies drug targets for heart failure with reduced and preserved ejection fraction. Nat Cardiovasc Res. 2025 Mar; 4(3):293-311. PMID: 39915329.