Christie Ballantyne, MD

Christie Ballantyne is an internationally renowned expert on lipids, atherosclerosis, and heart disease prevention. His research interest in the prevention of heart disease has led him to become an established investigator for the AHA and to receive continuous funding from the NIH since in 1988 in basic research of leukocyte–endothelial interactions, translational research in biomarkers, and clinical trials. Show full bio

Dr. Ballantyne’s  many accomplishments have included being elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians. In 2012 he received the American College of Cardiology Distinguished Scientist Award (Basic Domain). In 2014 and 2015, Thomson Reuters recognized Christie as one of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds.” Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science, named Dr. Ballantyne as a “Highly Cited Researcher” 2017-2022 in the top 1% of researchers most cited. In 2019, Dr. Ballantyne was awarded the Baylor College of Medicine Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., Excellence in Research Award. His research in biomarkers has led to the FDA approval of 2 biomarkers for cardiovascular risk prediction, and he has played a prominent role in the development and FDA approval of new therapies for treatment of lipids.

With over 1,000 publications in the area of atherosclerosis, lipids and inflammation, Christie also serves on the Editorial Board for Circulation and JACC. Christie is the Chief of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Research at Baylor College of Medicine. He is currently the Director for Cardiometabolic Disease Prevention at Baylor College of Medicine.

He received his MD from Baylor College of Medicine with internal medicine residency at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and cardiology fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine and an AHA fellowship at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Institute for Molecular Genetics at Baylor.

See Publications

Texas Heart Institute Positions

Education

  • Undergraduate:

    University of Texas at Austin

  • Medical School:

    Baylor College of Medicine

  • Residency:

    University of Texas Southwestern Affiliate Hospitals

  • Fellowships:

    Baylor College of Medicine Affiliate Hospitals

Academic & Clinical Affiliations

Honors, Awards and Memberships

Publications

Ijaz, S. H., Minhas, A. M. K., Jain, V. et al. (2023). Characteristics and outcomes in acute myocardial infarction hospitalizations among the older population (age ≥80 years) in the United States, 2004-2018. Arch Gerontol Geriatr 111, 104930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2023.104930.
Ballantyne, C. M. and Jia, X. (2023). Omega-3 fatty acids and risk for atrial fibrillation: big fish or small fry? J Am Coll Cardiol 82, 350–352. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2023.05.026.
Walker, K. A., Chen, J., Shi, L. et al. (2023). Proteomics analysis of plasma from middle-aged adults identifies protein markers of dementia risk in later life. Sci Transl Med 15, eadf5681. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.adf5681.
Jia, X., Buckley, L., Sun, C. et al. (2023). Association of interleukin-6 and interleukin-18 with cardiovascular disease in older adults: Atherosclerosis risk in communities study. Eur J Prev Cardiol, zwad197. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwad197.
Kiernan, E., Surapaneni, A., Zhou, L. et al. (2023). Alterations in the circulating proteome associated with albuminuria. J Am Soc Nephrol 34, 1078–1089. https://doi.org/10.1681/ASN.0000000000000108.
Ballantyne, C. M., Ditmarsch, M., Kastelein, J. J. et al. (2023). Obicetrapib plus ezetimibe as an adjunct to high-intensity statin therapy: A randomized phase 2 trial. J Clin Lipidol, S1933-2874(23)00186–1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacl.2023.05.098.
Zhang, Y., Dron, J. S., Bellows, B. K. et al. (2023). Association of severe hypercholesterolemia and familial hypercholesterolemia genotype with risk of coronary heart disease. Circulation 147, 1556–1559. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.064168.
Hussain, A., Ramsey, D., Lee, M. et al. (2023). Utilization rates of SGLT2 inhibitors among patients with type 2 diabetes, heart failure, and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease: Insights from the Department of Veterans Affairs. JACC Heart Fail, S2213-1779(23)00185–3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jchf.2023.03.024.
Cuchel, M., Lee, P. C., Hudgins, L. C. et al. (2023). Contemporary homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in the United States: Insights from the CASCADE FH Registry. J Am Heart Assoc 12, e029175. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.122.029175.
Virani, S. S., Ramsey, D. J., Westerman, D. et al. (2023). Cluster randomized trial of a personalized clinical decision support intervention to improve statin prescribing in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Circulation 147, 1411–1413. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.064226.