Professor of Medicine (Cardiology)
The University of Texas Medical School at Houston
Dr. Taegtmeyer received his Dr.med. (summa cum laude) from the University of Freiburg (Germany) in 1970 and his DPhil in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, UK in 1981. Dr. Taegtmeyer joined the UT faculty in 1982. He served as Director of the UT Cardiology Fellowship Program 1988-94, and achieved the rank of Professor in 1991. Dr. Taegtmeyer’s lab has received NIH research funding consistently over the last 25 years. He is a reviewer for many competitive journals. He served as an Associate Editor for Circulation (1993-2004); is an Associate Editor for Cardiology, and is on the Editorial Boards of Circulation Research, Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, and American Journal of Physiology – Heart and Circulation.
Dr. Taegtmeyer is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, a Fellow of the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, the American College of Physicians, and the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences. He was elected President of the Society for Heart and Vascular Metabolism in September 2006. Dr. Taegtmeyer is board certified by the ABIM in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Diseases. He has supervised 10 graduate students and 16 postdoctoral fellows, and he has mentored 11 residents on research rotations and 43 summer students. Many of his students hold academic appointments in the US (Yale, UCLA, UCSD, Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch, and The University of Texas Houston Medical School) and in Germany.
Dr. Taegtmeyer was a full member of the NIH Metabolism Study Section from 1989 to 1993 and has since served as an ad hoc member of various NIH study sections on a yearly basis. In 2005 the Director of the NHLBI named Dr. Taegtmeyer to the NIH Protocol Review Committee for the IMMEDIATE Trial. In 2006 he was named to the NHLBI Data Safety Monitoring Board for the IMMEDIATE Trial. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the University Clinical Research Center since 1995, and on the MacDonald Fund Research Committee since 2007.
Clinical Interests: Obesity and Diabetes, Heart Failure, Consultative and Outpatient Cardiology, Electrocardiography.
Current Research Projects: Dr. Taegtmeyer’s lab studies regulation of energy substrate metabolism, gene expression and signal transduction in the heart. At the molecular level, the lab studies mechanisms by which metabolically generated signals regulate signaling pathways of cardiac growth. Models include hypertrophied and atrophied heart in vivo, isolated working hearts, and isolated heart muscle cells in culture. Clinical studies investigate molecular mechanisms of heart failure and effects of diabetes and obesity on the heart.
Dr. Taegtmeyer is the author of 153 peer-reviewed papers, 37 invited editorials and reviews, and 21 book chapters. He has served as editor or co-editor of 3 textbooks.
