Bio
Dr. Marco Perez's research goal is to better understand the fundamental causes of cardiovascular disease through the study of genetics and epidemiology. His group studies the genetic variations and environmental exposures that are associated with conditions such as atrial fibrillation and heart failure. He has led the studies of atrial fibrillation in Women's Health Initiative, one of the largest nation-wide population-based cohorts. He is currently conducting a large study monitoring for silent or asymptomatic atrial fibrillation in women from the WHI randomized to exercise intervention, and was co-PI of the Apple Heart Study, a clinical trial that validated the ability of a smartwatch to detect atrial fibrillation. He is now PI of the Clinical Coordinating Center at Stanford for the REACT-AF which is a clinical trial to evaluate efficacy and safety of a "pill-in-the pocket" approach to anticoagulation for AF using a smartwatch. He is interested in understanding the paradox that atrial fibrillation is less common in African Americans and Hispanics, despite a greater burden of risk factors such as hypertension. As director of the Stanford Inherited Arrhythmia Clinic, he evaluates families with rare inherited arrhythmias associated with sudden death such as Long QT and Brugada Syndromes and explores their links with novel genes. He also studies the genetic causes of very early onset atrial fibrillation. He also studies how best to use the electrocardiogram and imaging modalities using Machine Learning techniques to identify patients at risk for cardiovascular disease. Dr. Perez receives funding from the NIH/NHLBI, Apple Inc., Janssen and the Colson Foundation.
