Jonathan R. Lindner, M.D. - member of a world-class team of cardiologists and medical researchers from the University of Virginia who joined the Oregon Health & Science University faculty last year -will deliver the OHSU Heart Research Center’s prestigious annual lecture on Thursday, April 27, at 6:30 p.m. in the OHSU Auditorium (old library building).

The 13th annual Heart Research Center lecture is titled “Tiny Bubbles - Big Ideas in Heart Disease and Cancer” and is cosponsored by the OHSU Cancer Institute. The lecture and a reception to follow are free and open to the public.

Lindner, an internationally known leader in the use of targeted or molecular imaging for the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, cancer and other diseases, is an associate professor of medicine and associate chief for education in OHSU’s cardiovascular division.

Lindner will explain the potential clinical applications of microbubbles, including revolutionary methods for early detection of disease, targeted delivery of drugs and genes, breaking up of blood clots and the noninvasive diagnosis of organ inflammation and the metastatic potential of tumors.

At the University of Virginia, Lindner and his team studied methods of using microbubbles to carry various substances such as drugs or genes directly to specific areas of interest in animal models. A microbubble is about half the size of a red blood cell; a hundred thousand of them can fit on the head of a pin. They are made of insoluble, high-molecular weight gases surrounded by a lipid, protein or polymer shell and produce a signal that can be detected and measured by ultrasound.

Lindner is one of an innovative team of seven cardiologists, headed by Sanjiv Kaul, M.D., who came to OHSU last year from Virginia. Kaul, OHSU chairman of cardiovascular medicine, was the first to develop myocardial contrast echocardiography, which employs the microbubble technology for rapid detection of heart attacks. OHSU’s new Chest Pain Center is the first such facility on the West Coast and one of only a handful in the nation to implement routine use of the technology.

“The microbubble technique opens up a completely new way of looking at medicine, allowing us to look at gene delivery, at identifying organs at risk, at therapy for cancer; this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Kent Thornburg, Ph.D., OHSU professor and research director of cardiovascular medicine and director of OHSU’s Heart Research Center.

Lindner was associate chief of cardiovascular research at the University of Virginia before coming to OHSU. He earned his medical degree in 1990 at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, where he also was a resident in internal medicine for three years. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas in Austin.