1932 –

Biography

Benjamin J. Scherlag, Ph.D. Visit the HeartRhythm Journal website for a podcast interview with Ben Scherlag where he discusses his beginning in electrophysiology and research that led to the development of the His bundle recording technique in humans, now a standard procedure worldwide used in the analysis and diagnosis of many cardiac arrhythmias. Image below © the Oklahoma Academy of Science; see its archives for the 1983 Award of Merit awarded to Dr. Scherlag.

The Heart Rhythm Institute of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center website offers this quote from Dr. Scherlag:

“My initial career objective was to teach high school biology. While taking my course work for a master’s degree, I fortuitously landed a research technician job with one of the foremost basic research scientists in cardiac electrophysiology and decided to get my Ph.D. degree in order to pursue an academic career in cardiac physiology.”

Benjamin J. Scherlag, Ph.D. was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1932 and received his undergraduate and graduate training at the City University of New York before obtaining his Ph.D. from the Downstate Medical Center of the State University of New York. His post-doctorate fellowship was completed at Columbia University in New York.

 His training in cardiac electrophysiology was under the tutelage of Dr. Brian F. Hoffman. He worked at the Staten Island, New York, Public Health Service Hospital for three years before moving to Miami, Florida to continue his research at the Mount Sinai Medical Center for six years and the Veterans Administration Medical Center for four years. He is currently Professor of Medicine University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Scherlag has earned the distinction of being named a George Lynn Cross Research Professor and Helen Webster Professor of Cardiac Arrhythmias for his dedication to medicine and research.

Scherlag is widely known for discovering a way to record the electrical signal from the bundle of His with a catheter placed in the femoral vein. It is the His bundle of fibers that carries an electrical impulse from the upper to the lower pumping chambers of the heart to ensure the sequence of the heart's contractions. Scherlag's discovery is considered to be the cornerstone for what was to become the new field of clinical electrophysiology. Then in the 1970s, it was Scherlag, Lazzara and coworkers who clarified many of the mechanisms for cardiac rhythm disturbances associated with myocardial infarction.

In 1989 Dr. Scherlag was awarded the Society (then known as NASPE) Pioneers in Pacing and Electrophysiology award. His announcement, written by the Society's 11th (1989-90) President and current HeartRhythm Journal Editor-in-Chief Douglas P. Zipes, MD, FHRS, read:

NASPE is pleased to confer its award “Pioneers in Pacing and Electrophysiology” on Benjamin J. Scherlag, Ph.D. Ben is widely known for his seminal observation in demonstrating a simple and standardized way to record His bundle activation in humans. However, in addition to (or despite) that clinical contribution, Ben has remained the consummate scientist. Although he has been a constant colleague of medical doctors, he has personally resisted the detractions of patients and has gone to the dogs, walking the honest road of science.

Ben started out as a laboratory assistant to Brian Hoffman almost four decades ago. He spent a crucial period at Staten Island during a tumultuously exciting three year period with Anthony Damato and a host of young superstars including Doctors Wit, Akhtar, Josephson, Ruskin and Rosen (Ken). Ben soon got cold feet in New York and moved to Miami where he forged a relationship with Ralph Lazzara, Nabil El-Sherif and Onkar Narula, all under the Medici beneficence of Philip Samet. Then Ralph, Nabil and Ben moved to University of Miami School of Medicine, and finally the daring twosome of Ralph and Ben, seeking wide open spaces, backpacked to Oklahoma City where they established a stellar electrophysiology community surrounded by wild natives who are kept at bay by threats of a Jackman electrophysiology study.

Ben’s significant contributions to science have spanned a period of 25 years. Only selected highlights will be mentioned. Almost 20 years ago, at a time when current dogma taught that bradycardia during acute myocardial ischemia was arrhythmogenic, Ben unequivocally demonstrated that tachycardia, not bradycardia, produced severe ventricular tachyarrhythmias. With Lazzara and El-Sherif, Scherlag reported on a host of in vivo and in vitro electrophysiologic abnormalities during acute and subacute myocardial ischemia/infarction. They demonstrated His-Purkinje conduction delay and block following anteroseptal coronary artery ligation and tested the efficacy of many antiarrhythmic drugs. This trimvirate offered a unified hypothesis to explain type 1 and type 2 second degree heart block based on their animal studies. With Berbari they began the first signal averaging studies, initially seeking noninvasive His bundle recordings and subsequently demonstrating late ventricular potentials. Then began a series of papers using a composite electrode to deduce ventricular reentry circuits in the late myocardial infarction period. These studies were the precursors of the multisite mapping studies born in the 80’s. Thereafter followed a steady stream of observations on mechanisms of arrhythmias associated with myocardial ischemia and infarction.

In addition to all this scientific productivity, Ben has found time to be a loving husband to Ellie and father to four children. His sense of humor is notorious and always sparks any conversation, making him a well liked and respected colleague. Ben is now on sabbatical close by, refueling his research tanks for many more years of important science. It is with great pleasure and honor that NASPE confers this award on Benjamin J. Scherlag, Ph.D.

See also: A History of Intracardiac Recordings — Dr. Scherlag’s presentation was one of three segments of a Heart Rhythm 2010 session titled History of Cardiac Electrophysiology. View webcast (15:50) »