Burton E Sobel

Burton E. Sobel, MD, internationally known leader in cardiovascular medicine, prolific scientist and former longtime director of the Cardiovascular Division at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, died Friday, May 3, 2013, at his home in Vermont, after a long illness. He was 75. Sobel served as chief of cardiology at Washington University and at Barnes Hospital from 1974 until 1994. He then moved to the University of Vermont, where he was a University Distinguished Professor of Medicine and a professor of biochemistry as well as founder and first director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of Vermont. Sobel earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1962. After an internship and residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, he continued his cardiology training at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. During this period, he also served in the U.S. Public Health Service. In 1968, he joined the faculty of University of California, San Diego. He came to Washington University in 1973 as an associate professor of medicine and director of the Cardiovascular Division at the School of Medicine and at Barnes and Wohl Hospitals. He was named the Tobias and Hortense Lewin Distinguished Professor in Cardiovascular Disease in 1985. After his tenure in St. Louis, Sobel joined the faculty of the University of Vermont as chair of the Department of Medicine in 1994. Sobel is survived by his wife of 55 years, Susan; his children, Jonathan and Elizabeth; and a granddaughter.