2024 PVD Mid-Career Award and Lecturer - Scott M. Damrauer, MD, FAHA

Dr. Scott Damrauer is a surgeon-scientist dedicated to advancing the understanding of the biological pathways and mechanisms most relevant in the etiology, progression and treatment of heart and vascular disease. His research leverages his clinical vascular surgery experience to inform population-scale genomic research. In this, he has focused primarily on peripheral artery disease (PAD), venous thromboembolism (VTE), abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and thoracic aortic disease (TAD). As part of the VA Million Veteran Program and the Penn Medicine BioBank, Dr. Damrauer’s work has significantly advanced our understanding of the genetic architecture of these diseases. He’s currently exploring the causal relationship of risk factors across traits, identifying novel therapeutic targets, and developing new ways to use genetics to identify people at risk.

Genomic medicine has been criticized for the lack of studies in diverse populations. To address these disparities, Dr. Damrauer has led a large interagency collaboration between the VA and the Department of Energy to map the genetic architecture of health and disease traits in more than 650,00 diverse veterans as part of the VA Million Veteran Program. These analyses represent the largest existing effort to understand the genetics of health and disease in diverse populations in the United States.

Dr. Damrauer’s work is supported by the NIH and the VA Office of Research and Development.