Welcome Professor Chim C Lang as Distinguished Professor at UMBI

Congratulations and thank you to Professor Chim C Lang

We would like to convey our heartiest congratulations and thank you to Professor Chim C Lang for being appointed as our Distinguished Professor at the UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI).

Professor Lang is Professor of Cardiology and Head of the Division of Molecular and Clinical Medicine at University of Dundee, the university from which he graduated in 1985. He trained in both cardiology and clinical pharmacology in the UK and in the USA, where he was a Merck Fellow at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, and a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York. He was formerly the Professor of Cardiology and Deputy Dean for Research at the Faculty of Medicine at University of Malaya. Since returning to the UK in 2004, he has raised or contributed to raising more than GBP20 million of grant income including major grants from the most competitive sources including the British Heart Foundation, the Medical Research Council and the European Commission. With Professor Jill Belch and others, he has obtained funding support from the Wolfson Foundation, and the Gannochy and Leng Trusts to help establish the Tayside Institute of Cardiovascular Research that has been hugely influential in both coordinating cardiovascular research in Dundee, and also raising the profile and public understanding of both the causes and treatment of heart disease.

Professor Lang has published more than 280 papers, and has an H-index of 51 (Scopus) and 61 (Google Scholar). He has also published 22 book chapters including chapters in major book publications including Heart Failure: A Companion to Braunwald’s Heart Disease. DL Mann ed . WB Saunders, USA (2004), Medical Management of Heart Failure .2 Edition.  Ed. Baliga RR, Haas GJ. Springer-Verlag (2015) and Oxford Handbook of Clinical and Healthcare Research. Edited by Sumantra Ray, Sue Fitzpatrick, Rajna Golubic, Susan Fisher, and edited with assistance of Sarah Gibbings; Oxford University Press.  Alongside these achievements, he is much in demand as a speaker at international venues, throughout Europe, the United States and Australasia. Broader recognition of his contributions includes the award of Fellowships from the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh, American College of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology. He is and has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals including Cardiovascular Therapeutics (Joint Editor-in-Chief), Heart (Associate Editor)and Clinical Science (Associate Editor). He was Chair of the Scottish Medical Academic Staff Committee, BMA Scotland and is the current Chair of the Heart Failure Working Group of NHS Tayside.

Professor Lang’s research is perhaps most clearly characterized both by its innovative and paradigm shifting qualities but also by its direct application to clinical care and its impact on improving the health of patients throughout the world. His involvement with the work of the INTERHEART group when he was in University of Malaya has helped redefined obesity as a risk factor based upon increased Waist to Hip Ratio. His work together with Professor Struthers on a biomarker called BNP has resulted in a major improvement in the diagnosis of heart failure which has now been incorporated into international guidelines for the diagnosis of heart failure. His work again with Professor Struthers on spironolactone has helped to reduce the mortality from heart failure. These latter 2 advances were highlighted as two of the Dundee Medical School impact cases submitted in support of the Research Excellence Framework 2014, that assesses the quality of research in UK Higher education institutions, and helped the School of Medicine in Dundee to achieve joint number 1 ranking for Impact (100% 4* impact cases) under the Clinical Medicine category in the United Kingdom. More recently, Professor Lang has been utilizing informatics and electronic health records (EHRs) that has helped change clinical practice guidelines to recommend the use of previously contraindicated drugs to be used to improve outcomes in patients with cardiovascular diseases. Investigating the use of renin angiotensin system (RAS) blockers, his research has shown that these classes of drugs can be used to treat hypertension in patients with aortic stenosis and to alleviate symptoms in patients with aortic regurgitation. His EHRS research of metformin showed its safe and important use as an anti-glycaemic drug in patients with diabetes mellitus and heart failure. The global impact of his research is reflected in international clinical practice guidelines and statements. With his appointment as a Distinguished Professor, Professor Lang intends to work with researchers at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia to explore further collaborative research in Malaysia.

Professor Lang is dedicated to both undergraduate and postgraduate training of future doctors and physician scientists. He has an impressive track record of postgraduate research supervision having successfully supervised 21 PhD/ Doctorate of Medicine students.

In summary, Professor Lang has made major contributions to cardiovascular research with global impacts on patient health. His appointment will help contribute and enrich Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s intellect and research pursuits and international projection.

The appointment as a Distinguished Professor at UMBI begins from 1 October 2020 to 30 September 2021, for one year. We hope his expertise will further enhance the international research collaboration and publication between UKM and the University of Dundee. Our heartfelt congratulations and thank you again to Professor Chim C Lang and we look forward to working with you in the future.