GuoWei He

Name：GuoWei He（Vice-president）

Specialty：Center for Basic Medical Research/Cardiovascular Surgery

Title：Chief Physician

Degree：Doctor

Professor Guo-Wei HE, MD, PhD ((Monash), DSc (Monash) is Vice President and Chief of Department of Cardiovascular Surgery II, as well as Director, Center for Basic Medical Research, TEDA International Cardiovascular Hospital (from October, 2007-), Tianjin，China.

Professor He currently also holds Clinical Professor of Surgery, Department of Surgery, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, U.S.A. and Chair Professor, Zhejiang University as well as Hangzhou Normal University, China.

Previously, Professor He was Chair Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Hong Kong & Honorary Consultant Cardiac Surgeon, The Grantham Hospital, Hospital Authority, Hong Kong and then Research Professor of Surgery & Director, Cardiovascular Surgical Research Laboratory, Department of Surgery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong and Professor of Surgery at Nankai University. He was also Director, Cardiovascular Research, Starr Academic Center, Providence Heart Institute, Portland OR, U.S.A.

Professor HE was Cardiac Surgeon-in-Charge at Fu Wai Hospital, Beijing in 1980s. He was awarded Master of Medicine degree at Peking Union Medical College in 1982. He was sent by Fu Wai Hospital to the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia to study neonatal and pediatric cardiac surgery and St. Vincent Hospital for coronary artery bypass surgery. Professor He, apart from his busy clinical schedule, obtained PhD (in Surgery) degree from Monash University in 1989. Later on, by his scientific work, he was awarded Doctor of Science (DSc) degree by Monash. Professor He was a senior registrar at the Cardiothoracic Surgery Unit, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney from 1989.

Professor He went to North America in 1990. He accepted a position at Dallas as Director of Cardiovascular Research, and then Director, Cardiovascular Research, Starr Academic Center for Cardiac Surgery, Providence Heart Institute, Portland OR, U.S.A. from 1994 until recently. Even when he was Chair Professor at the University of Hong Kong, he was still holding that position as an honorary Director. Since September, 2001, he is appointed Clinical Professor of Surgery, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, U.S.A.

In his career as a cardiac surgeon in the past more than 30 years, Professor He performed thousands of open heart operations including coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), valve repair and replacement, surgery for congenital heart diseases, and surgery for the great vessel diseases. Professor He first classified the arterial grafts for CABG and is world-widely cited as “He Classification”. Professor He developed a new method for CABG using arterial grafts, particularly the radial artery (University of Hong Kong Protocol or GWHE Protocol) and was one of the first cardiac surgeons using the radial artery for CABG in Asia. He also developed a new surgical method to repair the right ventricular outflow tract stenosis by using an autologous monocusp patch. Professor He started to operate on acute dissection of the aorta in 1995, and was one of the cardiac surgeons doing this kind of operations in 1990s in China. Professor He performed a large number of valve replacement with superior results. Professor He has been helping a number of hospitals in China to start heart surgery for some complex congenital heart diseases and CABG, and successfully performed the first operation such as CABG, TAPVC, Complete AV canal, and exec. in some provinces or hospitals.

Apart from his clinical practice as a Senior Cardiac Surgeon, Professor He also devoted to both basic and clinical science in the past 30 years and had multiple contributions in vascular biology and more recently, genomic and proteomic studies in heart diseases in Chinese patients. He obtained multiple RGC grants and recently grants from the Ministry of Science & Technology and National Science Foundation, China.

Professor He is the first Chinese elected to be an “Active Member” of American Association for Thoracic Surgery – the most strictly selective organization for this specialty.

Professor He is (or was) a member of editorial board for more than 10 international journals including The Annals of Thoracic Surgery (U.S.A.), World Journal of Surgery (U.S.A.) , and The Heart Surgery Forum (U.S.A.). He is Editor-in-Chief of The Open Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Journal, (by Bentham Science Publishers, ISSN:1876-5335 http://www.bentham.org/index.htm ), Deputy Editor-in-Chief，Chinese Cardiovascular Research, Beijing, exec.

Professor He has organized a number of international conferences and was invited to organize or to be the Chair of a number of basic science symposia on endothelial research such as Experimental Biology (FASEB, 1998, San Francisco) and International Union for Pharmacology (IUPHAR) Beijing, 2006.

Professor He has edited “Arterial grafting for coronary artery bypass Surgery” (1st and 2nd Edition). The book is written by world-experts in this field who have made original contributions in this clinical and research field. The book has been published by Springer-Verlag Singapore Ltd and is evaluated as the world “best single source of information for coronary artery bypass surgery using arterial grafts”, by the Chief-Editor of “Heart Surgery Forum” (U.S.A.). The book is forworded by Denton A Cooley, MD, one of the World-most-renowned cardiac surgeons from Houston, Texas, USA. Dr. Cooley stated that “Many renowned cardiac surgeons and cardiovascular researchers have contributed to this volume, which has been compiled by Guo-Wei He, MD, PhD, DSc. Dr. He has published a huge body of literature about arterial grafting in CABG, and his extensive experience in, and deep understanding of, this subject has earned him global recognition.

Professor He has 295 SCI (Science Citation Index, U.S.A.) -indexed publications and 181 full papers including editorials indexed by “Pub Med” including multiple papers in “Circulation (IF：15.202). The IF (of the journal) of his papers published is > 15.202 of 4 papers; IF > 7.0 of 6 papers; IF > 5.0 of 16 papers; IF > 3.0 of 104 papers; and IF > 2.0 of more than 150 papers. The h-Index of Professor He’s publications is 34. In the majority of those papers, he is the corresponding or first author. The total SCI citations are 3,787 up to May, 2015.

The St. Vincent Medical Foundation has established “Albert Starr – Guo-Wei He International Post-doctoral Research Fellowship” to support young scientists for advanced research training at the Cardiovascular Research Laboratory, Starr Academic Center, Providence Heart & Vascular Institute, Portland, OR, USA. Eight young post-doctoral scientists from the Mainland of China have been awarded this fellowship. Professor He’s PhD students are now worked in a number of countries and several of them have become professors in USA, Hong Kong, and China Mainland universities.

Professor He’s scientific contributions are as follows:

? First systematically identified a pathway apart from nitric oxide or prostacyclin mechanism – a cellular hyperpolarization mechanism in the human arteries and veins;

? First systematically identified the reactivity and related receptor functions in the endothelium and smooth muscle of the human arteries used as coronary artery bypass surgery as grafts and classified those vessels that formed the found stone for the comprehensive use of the arteries in coronary bypass surgery;

? First discovered the adverse effect of potassium ions and the effect of other ions on the hyperpolarization-related endothelial function in the coronary and pulmonary circulation that has important implications in heart-arrest related surgical procedures and may open a new era of the methods to preserve heart and lung in the future;

? Apart from these experimental physiology and pharmacology studies, he also systematically studied and identified the risk factors for coronary artery bypass surgery and for the long-term survival after valve replacement surgery.

? In recent years, Professor He’s research interest is focused on the genetic and proteomic studies in cardiovascular diseases.

As stated by Professor Louis J Ignarro, the 1998 Nobel Laureat in Physiology & Medicine: “Professor He’s work has established him as one of the few surgical-scientists in the world. His work is grounded in basic science and he has contributed numerous fundamental observations and insights to that body of knowledge,…”

Professor He has received a number of science awards as follows:

1. First Prize, 2012 Tianjin Natural Science Award (1st Contributor);

2. 2013 China Medical Science and Technology Award (3rd Class) (1st Contributor);

3. 2012 Tianjin Binhai New Area Science & Technology Progress Award (2nd Prize), (1st Contributor);

4. Awardee of a number of Research Grants from Research Grants Council, Hong Kong, Am. Heart Assoc., St. Vincent Medical Foundation, U.S.A.