James Young, MD, is Chairman of the Division of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and a professor in the Department of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University.
Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors of the Bakken Heart-Brain Institute. He has served as medical director of the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure and continues as a member of the board of directors of the Kaufman Center. He holds the George and Linda Kaufman Chair.
He was recently named Study Chairman of the NIH, FDA, and CMS Interagency Mechanical Circulatory Device Support Registry (INTERMACS). Dr. Young is a heart failure and heart transplant cardiologist with an interest in mechanical circulatory support devices.
Dr. Young is board-certified in Internal Medicine and in the subspecialty of Cardiovascular Disease. He is licensed to practice medicine in Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, as well as Ohio.
Dr. Young hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended the University of Kansas where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in biology. He earned a doctorate in medicine from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He was awarded his Medical Doctor degree cum laude and was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society.
Dr. Young remained in Houston to complete his clinical training in the Baylor Affiliated Hospital System. He became a tenured Professor of Medicine in 1992. He was the Clinical Coordinator and Scientific Director for Dr. Michael E. DeBakey’s Multi-organ Transplant Center at The Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine. He joined the Cleveland Clinic in 1995 as Head of the Section of Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Medicine in the Robert and Suzanne Department of Cardiovascular Medicine. In 1998, Dr. Young, along with his surgical colleague Dr. Patrick McCarthy, created the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure at the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Young’s clinical research activities began early on as a Lipid Research Clinic (LRC) physician. He next focused his efforts on heart failure and cardiac transplant therapeutics, including early experiences with dopamine receptor agonists, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin receptor blockers, many new immunosuppressants, and a variety of parenteral inotropes and vasodilators.
He has collaborated extensively with research associates in the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure and the Multi-organ Transplant Center on ‘bridging’ and ‘translational’ research on the molecular biology of cardiac remodeling, allograft arteriopathy, and transplanted heart rejection. Dr. Young served as the United States Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator for the HOPE, RESOLVED, SPICE, VMAC, MIRACLE-ICD, ONTARGET, TRENSCEND, ACCLAIM, RED-HF and CHARM multi-center clinical trials.
He has authored or co-authored over 500 scientific manuscripts, as well as several textbooks. Dr. Young states he is most proud of the following professional contributions: the development and administration of organ procurement programs; his efforts to secure recognition for the newly emerging cardiology subspecialty of “Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Medicine;” his interests in the medical humanities; and his collaborations with basic and clinical scientists to clarify the pathophysiology and best treatments for heart failure.
