(Vienna, 24 April 2026) The Medical University of Vienna mourns the loss of Eugene Braunwald, one of the most significant cardiologists in modern medicine. The Vienna-born Austrian-American doctor and scientist has shaped generations of doctors and researchers with his work in cardiovascular medicine and has brought about lasting change in cardiology worldwide.
His academic career took him, among other places, to Harvard Medical School, where he served as Distinguished Hersey Professor of Medicine, and to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he co-founded the TIMI Study Group. Previously, he had served as the first head of the cardiology department and clinical director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, as well as founding chair of the medical faculty at the University of California, San Diego.
Eugene Braunwald was born in Vienna in 1929. Following the ‘Anschluss’ of Austria, his family was forced to flee the Nazi regime and found refuge in the USA in 1939. As a result of this personal experience, his connection to Vienna and Austria remained of particular significance.
With his fundamental contributions to research into heart attacks, heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases, Braunwald ranks among the most influential figures in his field. Furthermore, he shaped the field of medicine as an author and editor of international standard works on internal medicine and cardiology. As recently as 2014, Eugene Braunwald was the guest of honour and keynote speaker at the ‘10 Years of MedUni Vienna’ celebrations. He dedicated his keynote address to the future of doctors working in clinical and scientific fields, under the title ‘The Physician Scientist: Protection of an Endangered Species’.
The Medical University of Vienna will continue to honour Eugene Braunwald’s memory in a visible way: a lecture theatre in the new Centre for Translational Medicine will bear his name, the “Eugene Braunwald Auditorium”. In this way, his legacy will remain present in the very place where research, clinical application, teaching and scientific exchange are set to be brought even closer together in the future.
MedUni Vienna will remember Eugene Braunwald as an exceptional physician, researcher, teacher and humanist thinker. His life’s work stands for scientific excellence, international influence and the conviction that medical progress must always serve patients.
Our thoughts are with his family, friends, colleagues and the global cardiology community.
Commemorative address delivered at the 10th-anniversary celebration of MedUni Vienna on November 3, 2014:
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