In memoriam: Dr. Ronald G. Victor: Co-founder of the Dallas Heart Study

Published on: November 27, 2018 By: Lori Sundeen Soderbergh

Former UT Southwestern faculty member Dr. Ronald G. Victor, a prominent hypertension expert and co-founder of the Dallas Heart Study, died Sept. 10 of pancreatic cancer.

Best known for his work with the African-American community, Dr. Victor developed an innovative research study in which Dallas barbers were asked to take their clients’ blood pressure and, if necessary, refer them to pharmacists. The study extended to Los Angeles, where nearly 64 percent of participants with uncontrolled hypertension achieved optimal blood pressure targets. The primary investigator on more than 140 published studies, Dr. Victor also made headlines at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in 2017 with a study that used cardiosphere-derived cells to improve cardiovascular outcomes in boys and young men with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Remembered by colleague, Dr. Robert Haley

“My long collaboration with Ron Victor began in the mid-1990s when he approached me with a radical idea. He was obsessed with the epidemic of premature death from heart disease, kidney failure, and stroke occurring uniquely in young black men from unrecognized and untreated high blood pressure. After a successful first career as a cardiovascular physiologist, he wanted to become an epidemiologist to attack this problem.

Ron discovered the perfect setting for reaching this population – the black barbershop. We received an AHA grant to assemble a team and plan a study. He pursued this goal through a succession of ever more creative study designs until his ultimate success was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

One day in early 1999 I received an urgent call from Ron reporting that the research proposal for the Dallas Heart Study had reached the final round of competition for the Reynolds Foundation’s $24 million winner-take-all grant. He was concerned that the UT Southwestern proposal, designed around studying Parkland clinic patients with heart disease, had been ranked last of the five finalists and needed a quick new design to be competitive. I had just submitted a grant proposal, for an epidemiologic telephone survey in a random sample of the Gulf War veteran population, followed by multi-modal medical testing of a subsample of cases and controls mined from the survey.

Ron and I quickly translated the design to a racially balanced Dallas County population survey with follow-up cardiovascular testing. Ron’s new plan moved UT Southwestern’s proposal into first place, and the rest is medical history.”

Contact:

Communications
3000 Pegasus Park Drive, 6th Floor
Dallas, TX 75247
Phone: 214-648-3404
centertimes@utsouthwestern.edu

Further Remembrances

“Ron was a towering figure in the field of hypertension. A proud son of ‘La Nouvelle-Orléans,’ his education and career led him to migrate to academic institutions around the country – Cornell, UCLA, Duke, UT Southwestern, and Cedars-Sinai – leaving a lasting impact at each place. His unwavering commitment to the underserved was paramount, including his paradigm-shifting publication focusing on a novel strategy to treat hypertension in African-Americans, published just a few months before his death.”

– Dr. Joseph Hill, Chief of Cardiology and Director of the Harry S. Moss Heart Center

“Let me be clear: Without Ron, there would be no Dallas Heart Study. Ron and I hardly knew each other when we joined up to write the grant for the Dallas Heart Study. We had just six weeks to write the grant, and often stayed at the Medical Center late into the night. I have fond memories of breaking up the work by visiting each other, or meeting at the vending machines to get a snack and discuss a study design issue. Ron had a great sense of humor and made the entire process fun.”

– Dr. Helen Hobbs, co-author of the Dallas Heart Study, Director of the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

“My deep gratitude to Ron, who was my mentor and dear friend. I had the privilege of working with him up until his final weeks of life. His unrelenting contributions to science and patient care, even when he was ill, speak to his commitment as a truly outstanding hypertension researcher, teacher, and clinician. Ron set high standards for all of us to follow.”

– Dr. Wanpen Vongpatanasin, Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Hypertension Fellowship Program

“Dr. Victor was a brilliant scientist and a great physician who cared deeply for his patients and their well-being. I had the privilege and pleasure of working with Ron on many research projects related to high blood pressure and kidney disease beginning in the early 1990s. Our scientific collaborations blossomed into a close personal relationship that we shared for the next 20 years. Ron was a ‘think big and do it’ guy. He had the uncanny ability to come up with a ‘crazy’ research idea, translate it into a feasible study, and then carry it out successfully. His barbershop blood pressure study epitomizes his wizardry in translational science. Ron taught me many things, and perhaps most importantly perseverance for which I will always be grateful. He will be missed by so many of us whose lives he enriched in more ways than one.”

– Dr. Robert Toto, Associate Dean of Clinical and Translational Research and Director of the Center for Translational Medicine