Garret A. FitzGerald

Garret Adare FitzGerald FRS MRIA is an Irish physician. He is professor of systems pharmacology and translational therapeutics and chair of the department of pharmacology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He researches aspects of cardiology, pharmacology, translational medicine, and chronobiology.

FitzGerald was born in Greystones, County Wicklow, on 11 May 1950. He grew up in Dublin, acquiring an unabated passion for rugby.

FitzGerald attended Belvedere College, a Jesuit school for boys in Dublin. Influenced by his grandfather, who had been a professor of Greek, he studied five languages at school including Greek and Latin. While completing his medical studies at University College, Dublin (UCD; MB BCh, MD), he acquired a master's degree in statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

FitzGerald attributes his career in medicine to "a series of accidents". During his final examinations at UCD he was required to dissect the mouthparts of a cockroach. Peering through a microscope, FitzGerald discovered that he had lost one of the main pieces. Disaster seemed certain as he searched the floor on his hands and knees. The exam procter came to help and eventually emerged with the tiny fragment stuck to her thumb. FitzGerald has stated that without her intervention he would never have become a physician.

After completing his clinical training, FitzGerald took a research position at Vanderbilt University in 1980. He returned to Ireland in 1991 before relocating to the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 as the founding director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics (CET). He became chair of pharmacology in 1996. The CET evolved into the Institute of Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT) in 2004.

His commitment to public service was demonstrated by his long tenure as a member of the Science Board to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

FitzGerald's work contributed substantially to the development of low-dose aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes. FitzGerald's lab was the first to predict and then mechanistically explain the cardiovascular hazard from Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), a common class of painkiller. His work showing that selective COX-2 inhibitors depress the production of prostacyclin in the endothelium, thereby increasing cardiovascular risk, was instrumental in the withdrawal of Vioxx (rofecoxib) from the U.S. market in 2004.

FitzGerald is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society, the Accademia dei Lincei and the Leopoldina, and an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.

• 2005 Boyle Medal
• 2007 Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh
• 2009 Taylor Prize
• 2011 Jakob Herz Prize
• 2012 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
• 2012 Lucian Award
• 2013 Scheele Award
• 2013 Lefoulon-Delalande Prize
• 2013 Schottenstein Prize
• 2014 St. Patrick's Day Medal from Science Foundation Ireland
• 2018 Elected to the German National Academy of Sciences