Massachusetts General Hospital

Biography

Director of the Echocardiography at Mass General and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a Past-President of the American Society of Echocardiography. He has been awarded the Young Investigator Award from the American College of Cardiology and the Richard Popp Award for Excellence in Teaching from the American Society of Echocardiography. He has been selected several times as one of the Best Cardiologists in Boston by Boston Magazine.

His research interests are in the novel applications of echocardiography in coronary artery disease, translational cardiology and valvular heart disease. He is recognized as an authority on Arrhythmogenic RV Dysplasia. He has helped develop the Appropriateness Criteria for Transthoracic and Transesophageal Echocardiography and those for Multimodality Cardiac Imaging in Heart Failure in addition to numerous other guidelines paper. He directs the advanced echocardiography fellowship at the Mass General.

Research

Dr. Picard's research interests include the novel applications of echocardiography in coronary artery disease, translational cardiology and valvular heart disease. A major goal has been to understand the effects of myocardial ischemia on remodeling or geometric changes of the left ventricle. His research group has developed novel methods to display and quantitate LV geometry using two and three dimensional echocardiography. These have been used to assess the various factors responsible for this adverse process. Most recently he and his research team have been using genetically modified mice and novel ultrasound techniques to determine which molecular pathways exert important control on LV remodeling in both coronary artery and in pressure overload states. In addition, Dr. Picard is recognized as an international authority on Arrhythmogenic RV Dysplasia. He has also been a leader in the use of real time echocardiographic imaging for percutaneous cardiac interventions such as percutaneous valve repair and replacement techniques, ASD and PFO device closures and alcohol septal reduction theraphy for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He also directs the echocardiography core labs for several National Institute of Health clinical research trials.

PublicationsHas authored over 300 original scientific manuscripts, practice guidleine documents, book chapters and books