Michael Bristow

Michael Bristow, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and Director of the Section of Pharmacogenomics in the University of Colorado Cardiovascular Institute.

Dr. Bristow received his MD and PhD in pharmacology in 1970 and 1971 from the University of Illinois Chicago MD/PhD Program, completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacology at the University of Illinois, and received his medical training at Stanford University. He remained at Stanford to complete a fellowship in cardiology, and joined the Cardiology faculty in 1979. He moved to the University of Utah in 1984, where he co‑founded the first multi‑hospital heart transplant program in the US. In 1991 he was recruited to the University of Colorado in Denver as Head of the Division of Cardiology, and served in that capacity until 2004.

Dr. Bristow has authored more than 500 peer‑reviewed papers and chapters on heart failure, cardiac transplantation, pharmacogenomics and other cardiovascular topics. He has received many academic and industry honors, including the Therapeutics Frontiers Award by the American college of Clinical Pharmacy (1993), the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Clinical Trial Exceptional Service Award (2008), the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Heart Failure Society of America (2008), Scientist of the Year by the Colorado Chapter of the ARCS Foundation (2008), University of Illinois Alumni Achievement Award, (2009) and the Distinguished Scientist Award (Translational Domain) by the American College of Cardiology (2014).

Dr. Bristow is also President and CEO of ARCA Biopharma, a Westminster, CO company he founded in 2003 to develop genetically targeted therapies for heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases. In 2007, he co‑founded Miragen Therapeutics, Inc., a Boulder company dedicated to utilizing the biologic properties of microRNA in developing therapies for cardiovascular diseases. He was the principal founder and former Chief Science and Medical Officer of Myogen, Inc., a Westminster, CO biopharmaceutical company that was acquired by Gilead Sciences in 2006. These companies, all founded on university‑licensed intellectual property generated by Dr. Bristow and his collaborators, have been responsible for creating hundreds of jobs in Colorado, and have returned over $2 billion to investors.