Robert H. Eckel, MD

Dr. Robert H. Eckel is the Charles A. Boettcher II Endowed Chair in Atherosclerosis, professor of medicine in the division of cardiology, and professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSCH) at Denver, where he serves as associate director of the Center for Human Nutrition, co-director of the Clinical Nutrition Research Unit and program director of the Adult General Clinical Research Center.

He also serves as a professor adjoint of pharmacy in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center (UCDHSC), where he has a faculty appointment in the biomedical sciences program.

Dr. Eckel received the BS in bacteriology cum laude from the University of Cincinnati (Ohio) in 1969 and the MD from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1973, where he was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed an internship in medicine in 1974 and a medical residency in 1976 at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals in Madison. In 1979, he completed a senior fellowship in metabolism and endocrinology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.

Dr. Eckel recently became a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is immediate past president of the American Heart Association. He received the Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS) Award for Research in the field of obesity from the North American Association for the Study of Obesity in 2005; Ruth Gray Lecture Award from Evanston Hospital, Northwestern University in 2004; and the Robert W. Schrier Award of Excellence from the Department of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, in 2001.

Dr. Eckel's research is targeted to improving the metabolic profile to reduce the risk for heart disease and stroke. His NIH-funded research has focused on the broad area of preventive cardiology in the pathogenesis and treatment of lipid disorders and obesity. His studies in animals and humans focus on the impact of nutrition/hormones on lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. In humans, Dr. Eckel has examined the nutritional/metabolic predictors of weight change, lipid disorders and atherosclerosis. In the laboratory, he uses mice with tissue-specific modification of gene expression to address similar issues in more extensive detail.

A fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Eckel is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Diabetes Association, American Federation of Clinical Research, American Heart Association, American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Neurotology Society and the Association of American Physicians.