Washington, D.C., May15, 1997: Dr. Lewis J. Rubin, head of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, was named today as winner of the PPH Cure's 1997 Scientific Progress Award.   The Award is issued each year to the researcher deemed to have made an outstanding contribution toward a cure for Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH).

"We are most pleased to be able to issue this award to Dr. Rubin," said Martine Rothblatt, Program Director of the PPH Cure .   "His widely recognized scientific research, robust clinical practice, esteemed teaching ability, pioneering scholarly publications and public interest speaking all combine in a rather unprecendented manner to demonstrate his outstanding leadership in the search for a PPH cure."

PPH is a serious, life-threatening disease of the smallest blood vessels within the lungs.  The disease blocks blood flow through the pulmonary capillaries, resulting in dizziness, exhaustion and ultimately right heart failure.  Most patients are young women, and left untreated the disease generally causes death within three years of diagnosis.   The cause of the disease in most people is unknown, although diet drugs such as Redux have been associated with a greatly increased risk of getting PPH.

Dr. Rubin, a Professor of Medicine and Physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is a graduate of the Albert Einstein Collge of Medicine and Yeshiva University, in New York.  After post-graduate work at Duke University Medical Center, he taught at the University of Texas Health Science Center.  He is the co-editor (with Stuart Rich, MD) of the only textbook on Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (Marcel Dekker 1997), and the author of over one hundred articles, monographs, book chapters and other publications on serious respiratory disorders.  Dr. Rubin was principally involved in achieving 1996 FDA approval of Glaxo-Wellcome's FLOLAN, the first drug to be approved for treatment of PPH and is principal investogator in other ongoing efforts to develop new medical treatments for PPH.   His trailblazing 1996 Abstract paper, Dysfunctional Voltage-Gated Potassium Channels in the Pulmonary Artery Smooth Muscle Cells of Patients with PPH, won the American Heart Assiation's highest award for Cardiopulmonary Abstract Papers.

Dr. Rubin asked that the PPH Cure divert the cash portion of the Scientific Progress Award to the purpose of funding his colleagues research. "Working with my collaborators and, of course out patients," said Dr. Rubin, "gives me more than enough gratifiation and incentive."