Denis Xavier, MBBS, MD, MSc (Clin Epi)
Dr. Xavier did his medical training at St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, India, and did a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University, Canada.
About 25 years back, he helped set up the first large cardiovascular collaboration in 220 centers in India and recruited 120,000 participants in 52 major projects. They include multi-centre observational studies in cardiovascular disease to determine burden, risk factors and treatments. The clinical trials involve anticoagulants, lipid lowering agents, anti-hypertensives, antiplatelet agents, polypills and the impact of non-medical health workers and m-Health in cardiovascular prevention. He has or is serving on about 36 international research steering committees.
Since 2017 he is the national convenor of the Academic Consortium for Clinical Research in India (ACCRI) of the Indian Society for Clinical Research (ISCR). ACCRI works to promote clinical research among academics in India.
He was Principal Investigator of NIH Center of Excellence to counter chronic diseases (2009-14). This includes studies in prevention of cardiovascular disease, a nation-wide stroke registry and mentored training programs.
Dr. Xavier led a 7-institution 42-member successful grant and is recognized as a Centre for Advanced Research (CAR, 2024-2029) by the Indian government (ICMR).
He has about 203 papers in journals such as the Lancet, Nejm, JAMA, Circulation, Eu Heart Journal, Heart, AHJ, Nature Cardiovascular, IHJ etc., Scopus metrices: citations 78,896, h-index 74. He has 8 chapters, 1 book. Dr. Xavier is listed among the top 2% of global scientists by Stanford University ranking 2021.
He is on the Editorial Board of JACC, Nature Cardiology, RUHS and Preventive Cardiology. He is Chair/ member of 5 ethics committees (past and present). He is a reviewer on about 15 Indian government research committees.
As the Vice Dean of postgraduate studies (2016-2020), he brought in several novel academic, administrative and social initiatives, as well as co-edited a book on wellbeing. He conducts workshops on junior doctor wellbeing. He is Chair of the doctoral (PhD) advisory committee at St. John’s since 2020.
For 15 years, he is course director of annual courses on research methods, evidence based medicine, RCTs and recently on implementation research.
He has delivered invited lectures at Oxford University, UK; McMaster University Canada; Harvard, Stanford, Duke and North Western Universities, USA. Dr. Xavier has also delivered invited lectures at the World Congress of Cardiology, Dubai 2012 (2 lectures), Melbourne Australia 2014 (2 lectures), AHA’s International Stroke Conference, Los Angeles 2016, World Stroke Congress (2016) and American Heart Association conference, New Orleans, USA (2016).