A professorship celebration recognized innovators in sleep medicine this spring, as the HMS community honored Susan Redline as the first incumbent of the Peter C. Farrell Professorship of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
“We are not only grateful to Peter Farrell for making today’s celebration possible, but also for being a passionate advocate of sleep medicine and helping to advance the discipline at a time when approximately 50 to 70 million Americans suffer with sleep disorders,” said HMS Dean Jeffrey S. Flier at the March 24 event.
Farrell, CEO of medical device maker ResMed, has served as member and chairman of the executive council of the HMS Division of Sleep Medicine. “Dr. Farrell has advised for more than 10 years on efforts to raise awareness of sleep as a medical discipline that demands attention,” said Flier, “and to educate the professional and general public of the importance of sleep and sleep medicine to health and public safety.”
Redline’s epidemiological research illuminates the causes and consequences of sleep and respiratory disorders. Redline has led multicenter cohort studies designed to address the independent influence of sleep disorders on a range of health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, falls and fractures, sickle cell acute lung syndrome and neurocognitive function.
“Susan Redline is the perfect choice as the first incumbent of the Peter C. Farrell Chair in Sleep Medicine,” said Joseph Loscalzo, chairman of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s. “In a short time with us, she has become an outstanding member of our medical faculty—one who couples the highest academic rigor in her scholarship with extraordinary humanism in her personal interactions.”
Redline’s past research has been devoted to developing studies that identify causes of chronic health conditions, with a particular focus on sleep apnea and its cardiovascular and metabolic consequences. “There’s wonderful basic research going on at both hospitals, and now both are complimented by a really powerful outcomes research effort at HMS and an understanding that Susan brings of the cardiovascular implications and outcomes that result from failure to treat these illnesses,” said Mark Zeidel, chair of the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess.
Redline serves on the board of directors of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and chairs the Steering Committee for the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative National Sleep Network. She is also the deputy editor of SLEEP, the official publication of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
“I’m thrilled to have this unbelievably unique and exceptional opportunity to build both a clinical and research program that bridges the areas of sleep medicine and cardiology,” said Redline. “It’s my hope, with the wonderful input of collaborators across the Harvard campus, that we’ll be able to develop some unique care paths for patients at high-risk for cardiovascular disease who suffer from sleep disorders, while increasing the knowledge base that will help us better screen, diagnose and treat patients—in other words, providing really high-quality evidence to improve health care.”
