Sumanth Prabhu, M.D., a professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, has been inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious organizations of physician-scientists.

Memberships are extended by invitation only and represent the highest ranks of academic medicine and industrial healthcare.

Prabhu, a University Scholar, has focused much of his UofL research on the fundamental mechanisms underlying cardiac dysfunction and heart failure, a disease that affects more than 5 million Americans.

He discovered that stimulation of the beta-adrenergic receptors in heart failure induces cardiac inflammation, and that one of the important benefits of commonly used beta-blocker drugs is the lessening of inflammation.

He also has shown that blocking the individual receptors for tumor necrosis factor, a critical inflammatory cytokine, triggers profoundly divergent responses in heart failure, suggesting a new approach to therapy. He is currently studying the effects of ventricular assist devices on inflammation and changes in gene expression in human heart failure.

Clinically, Prabhu is Director of the UofL Heart Failure Section and also attends to patients with end-stage heart failure at Jewish Hospital. These patients often require the implantation of ventricular assist devices or cardiac transplantation.

The 2,800-member American Society for Clinical Investigation considers the nominations of several hundred physician-scientists each year and elects up to 80 new members annually based on their significant research accomplishments. Because members must be 45 years of age or younger at the time of their election, membership reflects accomplishments by its members relatively early in their careers.

There are only 10 active society members in all of Kentucky. Prabhu is one of five members on faculty at UofL and the first to be inducted while at the institution.