Todor Mazgalev, Ph.D.

Todor N. Mazgalev, MD, is a Staff Research Scientist-Electrophysiologist in the Department of Molecular Cardiology, with a joint appointment in the Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, at Cleveland Clinic. Although he does not directly treat patients, Dr. Mazgalev works in close collaboration  with the  physicians and electrophysiologists, conducting research on the electrical processes in the heart at the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic.

He is especially interested in studying electrical abnormalities in the initiation and propagation of the cardiac beats, which are the basis for numerous diseases of the heart, commonly known as arrhythmias. Several arrhythmias, such as atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardias, are serious medical disorders that affect a large segment of the population. Other kinds of arrhythmias, such as ventricular fibrillation, are lethal and claim hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.

A native of Bulgaria, Dr. Mazgalev did his undergraduate work in science at Sofia Polytechnic University in Sofia, Bulgaria, and received his master’s degree in electro-physics at St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University in Russia, where he went on to complete his PhD in biomedical telemetry. Dr. Mazgalev received a fellowship in electrophysiology of the heart from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences where he became a First-Degree Research Associate in the Department of Cardiac Electrophysiology. He then received an academic appointment as a Senior Scientist at the Cardiology Foundation and Lankenau Medical Research Center in Philadelphia.

Dr. Mazgalev’s academic appointments also include Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at Allegheny University of Health Sciences, Director of Experimental Cardiac Electrophysiology at the University of Pittsburgh, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, and Director of the Basic Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratories at Cleveland Clinic. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. He was appointed to the Cleveland Clinic in 1994.

The impact of Dr. Mazgalev’s research endeavors has resulted in his inclusion in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare. Dr. Mazgalev’s grant-supported research focuses primarily on the atrioventricular (AV) conduction system, the electrical excitability of isolated cardiac cells and the integration of the heart rate and direct neural effects, as well as novel methods for controlling the ventricular rate during atrial fibrillation by using nerve pacemakers. He has been an invited lecturer at medical conferences and symposia where he has presented his research findings.

He has published hundreds of articles and abstracts in peer-reviewed journals on his research, and he has authored or co-authored more than a dozen chapters in medical textbooks on subjects ranging from optical mapping of impulse propagation in the AV node to the AV nodal dual pathway electrophysiology as a controversial concept. He is the editor for two textbooks on electrophysiology, and he is editorial board member and a reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals, including Heart Rhythm and Journal of Cardiac Electrophysiology, the American Journal of Physiology, Circulation/Circulation Research, Cardiovascular Research, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, to name a few. Dr. Mazgalev has been invited to chair or give lectures at major national and international scientific sessions and frequently serves as an abstract reviewer for scientific meetings of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.

Dr. Mazgalev is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC), the American Heart Association, and the Heart Rhythm Society. In addition, he is a member of the Bulgarian Physiological Society, the American Physiological Society, the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

• Distinguished as Fellow of several professional scientific societies
• Biographic sketches published in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare

• MS, Biomedical engineering
• PhD, Biotelemetry

Cardiac electrophysiology, arrhythmias, autonomic nervous system, atrioventricular conduction system.

Has pioneered the use of selective neural cardiac ganglionic electrical stimulation for regulation of cardiac rate during atrial fibrillation. This novel technology is currently under preclinical development in Cleveland Clinic with active participation of the Atrial Fibrillation Innovation Center. For his work, Dr. Mazgalev has received several Innovator of the Year awards.

• Fellow, American College of Cardiology
• Fellow, Heart Rhythm Society
• Fellow, American Heart Association
• Research funding as Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator or Consultant from the National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association
• Cleveland Clinic Innovator

• American Physiological Society
• American College of Cardiology
• Cardiac Electrophysiology Society
• American Heart Association
• Heart Rhythm Society

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