Dan Atar


Dan Atar is a clinical cardiologist, researcher and professor. He is head of research at Oslo University Hospital, Div. of Medicine, and a full professor at the Institute of Clinical Sciences of the University of Oslo, Norway. He is editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Cardiology.

Early life and education

Dan Atar was born in Freiburg, West-Germany, into a family of medical practitioners. His father, Zeev Atar, being an ophthalmologist and mother, Dalia Atar working as a registered nurse. When he was four years old the family relocated to Basel, Switzerland. He graduated in 1985 with an MD from the medical school at Basel University

Career

Atar completed his postgraduate training at the State University Hospital (Rigshospitalet) of Copenhagen, Denmark under Stig Haunsø, and the Basel University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland under Felix Burkart. Later relocating to Baltimore, he first joined the team under Robert A. Vogel at the University of Maryland Medical Center at Baltimore, studying QCA and continued at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, joining the research group of Eduardo Marbán.
Atar received his associate professorship at the University of Basel in 1994, and his first junior faculty position at the Department of Cardiology at the Zürich University Hospital, under Thomas F. Lüscher. He then served as senior cardiologist in Copenhagen, Denmark.
In 2002, he received a call to the University of Oslo, Norway, to assume a full professorship in cardiology at Aker University Hospital in Oslo, where he also was appointed head of department. In 2014, Atar was appointed head of research for the Division of Medicine at Oslo University Hospital.
Alongside these positions, Atar engaged in the European Society of Cardiology. He became chair of the Working Group of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy in 2006 and was later elected to a councilor position and board member of the ESC. In 2014–16, he was elected vice-president of the ESC, and in 2018, he was elected as secretary/treasurer of its executive board.
He became editor-in-chief for the peer-reviewed international journal Cardiology. He served on numerous Executive Steering Committees for worldwide clinical trials, particularly chairing the FIRE-study, the MITOCARE trial, and the BETAMI trial.
He served for eight years in the board of the Norwegian Society of Cardiology.
Throughout his career, he has practiced as a senior cardiologist, seeing patients both on the ward and in outpatient clinics.

Personal life

On August 13, 1988, Atar married Anne-Mette Kristensen in Copenhagen, Denmark. They had two children. Kristensen died in 2001. On April 8, 2008, Dan married the opera singer Anna Elisabet Einarsson. They have two children.

Selected publications

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Awards and honors