Biosketch

Dr. Bluemke earned his medical degree at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program and his PhD from the University of Chicago’s Department of Biophysics and Theoretical Biology, where he studied the evaluation of three-dimensional macromolecules using advanced computer modeling techniques. He also holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Science in business from Johns Hopkins University. His training includes a fellowship in cross-sectional imaging in diagnostic radiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is a fellow of the American Heart Association.

Before coming to the Clinical Center, Dr. Bluemke was clinical director of the Division of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at Johns Hopkins, where he was responsible for the administration and performance of approximately 35,000 MRI examinations per year in the hospital and outpatient center with oversight of 40 MRI technologists operating eight MRI scanners. Dr. Bluemke also served as a professor of radiology and medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Bluemke’s research focuses on cardiovascular disease and its complications and seeks to better understand especially how subclinical disease can be detected with newly developed imaging technologies, described, and tracked over time. His group was the first to describe the use of myocardial delayed enhancement in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD), and the first to document quantitative evaluation of cardiac function in this condition, as well as normal variations of the geometry of the right heart. He is the world recognized imaging expert in this extraordinarily difficult-to-diagnose condition and the principal investigator of the MRI reading center for the U.S. ARVD multi-center trial. Under Dr. Bluemke’s direction, the Johns Hopkins Division of MRI was also one of the first groups to demonstrate a method for multi-station MRI angiography and for the intravascular assessment of ultra-high resolution evaluation of atherosclerotic plaque in humans. His area of expertise in imaging also extends to oncologic disease and the evaluation of cancer with MRI. Dr. Bluemke was a lead author on four large, multi-center clinical trials evaluating the use of novel contrast for MRI for oncologic applications, the largest multi-study of MRI in the evaluation of breast cancer, and a multi-center trial in cardiovascular disease.  He is currently studying cardiovascular disease with MRI in the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) trial of more than 1000 type 1 diabetic patients and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) study of 6800 individuals.

Dr. Bluemke has shared this knowledge by teaching more than 30 post-graduate trainees from across North America and internationally in radiology and cardiology. He has also lectured at more than 200 international and national conferences, CME events, and society meetings. 

He is a past member of the board of trustees for the Internal Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), board member of the North American Society of Cardiovascular Imaging, current chair of the American College of Radiology (ACR) Cardiac Accreditation Committee, and past program chair of the ISMRM Cardiac MR Study Group. He has been appointed to the American Heart Association Council on Radiology and Intervention, the ACR Committee on Standards for Body MRI, and the ACR Committee on Standards and Accreditation for Magnetic Resonance.

Awards

His most recent awards include an outstanding teacher award from ISMRM in cardiovascular imaging, the elite reviewer award from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, two Executive Council awards and a silver medal from the American Roentgen Ray Society, and Cum Laude and contrast agent awards from the Society of Computed Body Tomography and Magnetic Resonance. In 2007 Dr. Bluemke was named among the top 10 radiologists by Medical Imaging and among America’s Top Doctors by Castle Connolly Medical Ltd.

Selected Publications

To date, Dr. Bluemke has co-authored more than 260 peer-reviewed publications, 300 scientific abstracts, and 27 book chapters and monographs.  The breadth of his writing reflects the range of his expertise in diagnostic radiology and parallels the tremendous technology changes in the fields of MRI and Computed Tomography. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals: the Journal of Computed Axial Tomography, Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Applied Radiology and the International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging and a consultant to the editor for Radiology. He is a reviewer for more than 20 scientific journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Bahrami H, Bluemke DA, Kronmal R, Bertoni AG, Lloyd-Jones DM, Shahar E, Szklo  M, Lima JA.  Novel metabolic risk factors for incident heart failure and their relationship with obesity: the MESA (Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis) study. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2008 May 6;51(18):1775-83. PMID: 18452784 [PubMed - in process]

Wasserman BA, Sharrett AR, Lai S, Gomes AS, Cushman M, Folsom AR, Bild DE, Kronmal RA, Sinha S, Bluemke DA.  Risk factor associations with the presence of a lipid core in carotid plaque of asymptomatic individuals using high-resolution MRI: the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis (MESA). Stroke. 2008 Feb;39(2):329-35. Epub 2008 Jan 3. PMID: 18174475

Xia J, Seckin E, Xiang Y, Vranesic M, Mathews WB, Hong K, Bluemke DA, Lerman LO, Szabo Z.  Positron-emission tomography imaging of the angiotensin II subtype 1 receptor in swine renal artery stenosis. Hypertension. 2008 Feb;51(2):466-73. Epub 2008 Jan 2.

Brown ER, Kronmal RA, Bluemke DA, Guerci AD, Carr JJ, Goldin J, Detrano R.  Coronary calcium coverage score: determination, correlates, and predictive accuracy in the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis. Radiology. 2008 Jun;247(3):669-75. Epub 2008 Apr 15.

Nasir K, Tsai M, Rosen BD, Fernandes V, Bluemke DA, Folsom AR, Lima JA.   Elevated homocysteine is associated with reduced regional left ventricular function: the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Circulation. 2007 Jan 16;115(2):180-7. Epub 2007 Jan 2.  PMID: 17200444

Lehman CD, Gatsonis C, Kuhl CK, Hendrick RE, Pisano ED, Hanna L, Peacock S, Smazal SF, Maki DD, Julian TB, DePeri ER, Bluemke DA, Schnall MD; ACRIN Trial 6667 Investigators Group.  MRI evaluation of the contralateral breast in women with recently diagnosed breast cancer. N Engl J Med. 2007 Mar 29;356(13):1295-303

Macedo R, Prakasa K, Tichnell C, Marcus F, Calkins H, Lima JA, Bluemke DA.   Marked lipomatous infiltration of the right ventricle: MRI findings in relation to arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia. AJR Am J Roentgenol. 2007 May;188(5):W423-7.  PMID: 17449737

George RT, Jerosch-Herold M, Silva C, Kitagawa K, Bluemke DA, Lima JA, Lardo AC.  Quantification of Myocardial Perfusion Using Dynamic 64-Detector Computed Tomography. Invest Radiol. 2007 Dec;42(12):815-822. PMID: 18007153

Tandri H, Macedo R, Calkins H, Marcus F, Cannom D, Scheinman M, Daubert J, Estes M 3rd, Wilber D, Talajic M, Duff H, Krahn A, Sweeney M, Garan H, Bluemke DA; Multidisciplinary Study of Right Ventricular Dysplasia Investigators.  Role of magnetic resonance imaging in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia: insights from the North American arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD/C) study. Am Heart J. 2008 Jan;155(1):147-53. Epub 2007 Sep 14. Erratum in: Am Heart J. 2008 Feb;155(2):289. PMID: 18082506

Detrano R, Guerci AD, Carr JJ, Bild DE, Burke G, Folsom AR, Liu K, Shea S, Szklo M, Bluemke DA, O'Leary DH, Tracy R, Watson K, Wong ND, Kronmal RA.  Coronary calcium as a predictor of coronary events in four racial or ethnic groups. N Engl J Med. 2008 Mar 27;358(13):1336-45. PMID: 18367736