The father of Soviet cardiology who ran Kremlin medicine for 20 years
“Nuclear war, unless it is prevented, would lead to the extinction of life on Earth and possibly in the Universe. Can we take such a risk?” — Nobel lecture, Oslo, 1985
Yevgeny Chazov was a Soviet cardiologist who pioneered thrombolytic therapy for myocardial infarction and oversaw Kremlin medicine for twenty years, treating successive leaders from Brezhnev to Chernenko. In 1980 he co-founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War with American cardiologist Bernard Lown, receiving the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, a rare Cold War collaboration across the blocs.
Career Timeline
- 1953Graduated Kiev Medical Institute; residency in Moscow
- 1963Doctor of Medical Sciences
- 1965–1976Director, Myasnikov Institute of Cardiology, AMS USSR
- 1967–1986Chief, 4th Main Directorate (Kremlin medical service)
- 1968–1986Deputy Minister of Health, USSR
- 1976–2014Director, All-Union Cardiology Research Center
- 1987–1990Minister of Health, USSR
Related historical events
- 1985–1988The Anti-Alcohol CampaignAs health minister, tallied the public-health gains, including rising life expectancy.
- 1986The Chernobyl DisasterDeputy Health Minister · reported death tollAs Deputy Health Minister he publicly reported the Chernobyl death toll and coordinated medical response; in 1988 as Health Minister he opened the first IAEA Chernobyl medical conference in Kiev.
Pioneer of Thrombolytic Therapy
Yevgeny Chazov's most important scientific contribution was pioneering thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction. Beginning in the late 1950s under his teacher Aleksandr Myasnikov, Chazov investigated the mechanisms of thrombosis and, in collaboration with Boris Kudryashov and Galina Andreenko's team at Moscow State University's Biology Faculty, developed the fibrinolytic enzyme preparation fibrinolysin. He began administering it to heart-attack patients in 1960, and his 1963 doctoral dissertation systematically established the role of impaired anticoagulant mechanisms in coronary thrombosis and a new treatment approach.
The decisive breakthrough came on 5 June 1974, when Chazov's team performed the world's first intracoronary thrombolysis: directly infusing fibrinolysin into the occluded coronary artery of a patient with acute myocardial infarction. Published in 1976 in the journal Terapevticheskii Arkhiv, this work became the origin of modern reperfusion therapy and drove the worldwide paradigm shift in the standard treatment of acute myocardial infarction. The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) assessed Chazov's achievement in 2021 as demonstrating for the first time that intracoronary infusion could lyse thrombus in a freshly occluded coronary artery and restore blood flow to ischemic myocardium.
Chazov went beyond laboratory research to build a national system of myocardial infarction care. He designed a multi-tiered network of specialized ambulance services for the pre-hospital stage, intensive-care infarct wards, and rehabilitation sanatoria: a model adopted as standard across the USSR, its successor states, and many countries. For this work he received the 1969 USSR State Prize. Under his supervision more than 30 doctoral and 50 candidate dissertations were completed, and the All-Union Cardiology Research Center he founded and directed for 38 years was renamed the Chazov National Medical Research Centre of Cardiology in 2022.