Emergency Medicine

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC POSITION:
Lance Becker is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Center for Resuscitation Science at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

EDUCATION:
• BGS (General Studies) University of Michigan, 1975
• MA (Biochemistry) University of Illinois, 1977
• MD (Medicine) University of Illinois School of Medicine, 1981

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:
He has worked closely with the NIH as a reviewer, grantee, and in a leadership role as the Chair of the Myocardial Protection Working group for the NIH NHLBI's sponsored PULSE Conference and PULSE Leadership Group. He also served as a member of the Food and Drug Administration Device Evaluation panels and has appeared before the FDA panels as an expert presenter. He has also served on the National American Heart Association's Basic Life Support Committee (past chairman) and Advanced Life Support subcommittees and is past chair of the Cardiopulmonary, Perioperative, and Critical Care Council of the American Heart Association. He was chair of the International AHA Guidelines Conference for consensus on international resuscitation science and new CPR recommendations (2005).

AWARDS:
He was awarded the 'Time, Feeling, and Focus' Award from the American Heart Association and leadership awards from the National Emergency Cardiac Care Committee of the American Heart Association.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Professor Becker is nationally recognized for his research in resuscitation. His work focuses on new methods for saving lives from sudden death. This work studies cardiac arrest, stroke, myocardial infarction and traumatic injury because these conditions all have in common the presence of ischemia. To treat ischemia, new methods are required for restoring oxygen and energy to critical organs. Professor Becker brings together basic scientists, bioengineers, and multiple health care professionals to discover new strategies and drugs that can be used so more lives can be saved following ischemia.