2024 Arthur C Corcoran Memorial Lecture - Vesna D. Garovic, MD, PhD, FAHA, FASN

Dr. Vesna Garovic is professor of medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

She earned her medical degree in biochemistry and PhD in obstetrics/molecular biology at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Medicine in Serbia, and a MSc degree in molecular genetics from McGill University.

Dr. Garovic completed her internal medicine residency and nephrology fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. 

Her clinical and research interests in hypertension, particularly hypertensive pregnancy disorders, span several research areas: diagnosis and treatment; underlying molecular mechanisms; epigenetics; and epidemiology of cardiovascular and renal complications.

She serves as chairperson of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension; vice-chairperson for research in the Department of Internal Medicine; director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science; dean for Clinical and Translational Science across the Mayo Clinic enterprise; and the Penske Foundation Named Professor of Clinical Medicine.

She has been NIH-funded for almost two decades and has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers.

She served as a chartered member of the Pregnancy and Neonatology NIH Study Section and as a member of the AHA Hypertension and Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease Science Subcommittee.

Dr. Garovic was appointed by the AHA as the chairperson of the writing group of the scientific statement on “Hypertension in pregnancy: diagnosis, blood pressure goals, and pharmacotherapy” (Hypertension, 2022).

She is the recipient of the Marvin Moser Clinical Hypertension Award from the AHA Council on Hypertension in 2022 and the 2024 American Society of Nephrology Barbara Murphy Life Achievement Award.