Alumni Profile: Hossein Ardehali, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Ardehali is a 1998 graduate of the Vanderbilt MSTP. He earned his PhD in Biophysics under Professor Darryl Granner studying the genetic organization of hexokinase. He is currently a Professor of Medicine in the divisions of Cardiology and Pharmacology, Director of the Center for Molecular Cardiology, and most recently, Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Ardehali was recently invited to Vanderbilt to deliver a lecture titled “Going through an MD/PhD program as an Immigrant” as a part of the Flexner Dean’s Lecture Series, the School of Medicine’s major non-scientific lecture series. As a member of the lecture series planning committee, and the resident Northwestern alum (Go ‘Cats!), I had the wonderful opportunity to have dinner with Dr. Ardehali, faculty, and students the night before his lecture.
One of the biggest lessons I learned while having dinner with Dr. Ardehali was that the friendships and connections you make during your time as a trainee can last a lifetime. For instance, also attending the dinner was Dr. Wonder Drake, a 1994 MD graduate of VUSM, current Vanderbilt Professor of Medicine and Immunology, and a classmate of Dr. Ardehali’s from medical school. This point was also reinforced during Dr. Ardehali’s talk, in which he emphasized the important role his graduate and clinical mentors at Vanderbilt had in shaping his early career. As a G2 MSTP myself, it been a bittersweet year as I watch most of my former MD classmates prepare to leave for residency. It’s comforting to see that the bonds formed between classmates and mentors in the classroom, the wards, and the laboratory continue well past the walls of Light Hall.
Dr. Ardehali’s Flexner Dean’s Lecture was based on an editorial he authored in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in the wake of the March 2017 travel ban, titled “Potential consequences of the immigration ban on the scientific community.”1 In his talk, he recalled his journey growing up in Iran during the before and during the 1979 revolution and his immigration to America at the age of 16. After emigrating from Iran, Dr. Ardehali earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science at the University of Utah before coming to Vanderbilt for medical school. He recalled how fortunate he felt to have access to such exceptional opportunities in the United States, even though he was unable to travel freely to his homeland during the holidays.
In his talk, Dr. Ardehali also emphasized the need for physicians and scientists to become involved in the political system, both as listeners and as leaders. Though our country is politically divided, physicians, scientists, and academics have the potential to bridge that divide by engaging with the public and policymakers at all levels of government, including running for elected office. His final piece of advice to students was to not to limit themselves to traditional physician-scientists careers in the basic sciences, but to consider studying public policy or political science as well.
1. Ardehali H. Potential consequences of the immigration ban on the scientific community. J Clin Invest. 2017;127(3):735–736. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI93276.2017;127(3):735-6.