Dan Atar was born in Freiburg, West-Germany, into a family of medical practitioners. His father, Zeev Atar, being an ophthalmologist and mother, Dalia Atar working as a registered nurse. When he was four years old the family relocated to Basel, Switzerland. He graduated in 1985 with an MD from the medical school at Basel University
Atar received his associate professorship (Privatdozent) at the University of Basel in 1994, and his first junior faculty position at the Department of Cardiology at the Zürich University Hospital, under Thomas F. Lüscher. He then served as senior cardiologist in Copenhagen, Denmark.[1]
In 2002, he received a call to the University of Oslo, Norway, to assume a full professorship in cardiology at Aker University Hospital in Oslo, where he also was appointed head of department. In 2014, Atar was appointed head of research for the Division of Medicine at Oslo University Hospital.[4]
Alongside these positions, Atar engaged in the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). He became chair of the Working Group of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy in 2006 and was later elected to a councilor position and board member of the ESC. In 2014–16, he was elected vice-president of the ESC, and in 2018, he was elected as secretary/treasurer of its executive board.[2]
He became editor-in-chief for the peer-reviewed international journal Cardiology (Karger).[5] He served on numerous Executive Steering Committees for worldwide clinical trials, particularly chairing the FIRE-study (published in 2009), the MITOCARE trial (2015), and the BETAMI trial (2018-).[5]
He served for eight years in the board of the Norwegian Society of Cardiology.
Throughout his career, he has practiced as a senior cardiologist, seeing patients both on the ward and in outpatient clinics.
Personal life
On August 13, 1988, Atar married Anne-Mette Kristensen in Copenhagen, Denmark. They had two children, Anne-Mette died in 2001. On April 8, 2008, Dan married the opera singer Anna Elisabet Einarsson. They have two children.
Selected publications
Thygesen, Kristian; Alpert, Joseph S.; Jaffe, Allan S.; Simoons, Maarten L.; Chaitman, Bernard R.; White, Harvey D.; Thygesen, Kristian; Alpert, Joseph S.; White, Harvey D.; Jaffe, Allan S.; Katus, Hugo A.; Apple, Fred S.; Lindahl, Bertil; Morrow, David A.; Chaitman, Bernard R.; Clemmensen, Peter M.; Johanson, Per; Hod, Hanoch; Underwood, Richard; Bax, Jeroen J.; Bonow, Robert O.; Pinto, Fausto; Gibbons, Raymond J.; Fox, Keith A.; Atar, Dan; Newby, L. Kristin; Galvani, Marcello; Hamm, Christian W.; Uretsky, Barry F.; Gabriel Steg, Ph; Wijns, William; Bassand, Jean-Pierre; Menasché, Phillippe; Ravkilde, Jan; Ohman, E. Magnus; Antman, Elliott M.; Wallentin, Lars C.; Armstrong, Paul W.; Simoons, Maarten L.; Januzzi, James L.; Nieminen, Markku S.; Gheorghiade, Mihai; Filippatos, Gerasimos; Luepker, Russell V.; Fortmann, Stephen P.; Rosamond, Wayne D.; Levy, Dan; Wood, David; Smith, Sidney C.; Hu, Dayi; Lopez-Sendon, José-Luis; Robertson, Rose Marie; Weaver, Douglas; Tendera, Michal; Bove, Alfred A.; Parkhomenko, Alexander N.; Vasilieva, Elena J.; Mendis, Shanti; Bax, Jeroen J.; Baumgartner, Helmut; Ceconi, Claudio; Dean, Veronica; Deaton, Christi; Fagard, Robert; Funck-Brentano, Christian; Hasdai, David; Hoes, Arno; Kirchhof, Paulus; Knuuti, Juhani; Kolh, Philippe; McDonagh, Theresa; Moulin, Cyril; Popescu, Bogdan A.; Reiner, Željko; Sechtem, Udo; Sirnes, Per Anton; Tendera, Michal; Torbicki, Adam; Vahanian, Alec; Windecker, Stephan; Morais, Joao; Aguiar, Carlos; Almahmeed, Wael; Arnar, David O.; Barili, Fabio; Bloch, Kenneth D.; Bolger, Ann F.; Bøtker, Hans Erik; Bozkurt, Biykem; Bugiardini, Raffaele; Cannon, Christopher; de Lemos, James; Eberli, Franz R.; Escobar, Edgardo; Hlatky, Mark; James, Stefan; Kern, Karl B.; Moliterno, David J.; Mueller, Christian; Neskovic, Aleksandar N.; Pieske, Burkert Mathias; Schulman, Steven P.; Storey, Robert F.; Taubert, Kathryn A.; Vranckx, Pascal; Wagner, Daniel R. (1 October 2012). "Third universal definition of myocardial infarction". European Heart Journal. 33 (20): 2551–2567. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehs184. PMID22922414.
Granger, Christopher B.; Alexander, John H.; McMurray, John J.V.; Lopes, Renato D.; Hylek, Elaine M.; Hanna, Michael; Al-Khalidi, Hussein R.; Ansell, Jack; Atar, Dan; Avezum, Alvaro; Bahit, M. Cecilia; Diaz, Rafael; Easton, J. Donald; Ezekowitz, Justin A.; Flaker, Greg; Garcia, David; Geraldes, Margarida; Gersh, Bernard J.; Golitsyn, Sergey; Goto, Shinya; Hermosillo, Antonio G.; Hohnloser, Stefan H.; Horowitz, John; Mohan, Puneet; Jansky, Petr; Lewis, Basil S.; Lopez-Sendon, Jose Luis; Pais, Prem; Parkhomenko, Alexander; Verheugt, Freek W.A.; Zhu, Jun; Wallentin, Lars (15 September 2011). "Apixaban versus Warfarin in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation". New England Journal of Medicine. 365 (11): 981–992. doi:10.1056/nejmoa1107039. PMID21870978. S2CID43262809.
Kirchhof, Paulus; Benussi, Stefano; Kotecha, Dipak; Ahlsson, Anders; Atar, Dan; Casadei, Barbara; Castella, Manuel; Diener, Hans-Christoph; Heidbuchel, Hein; Hendriks, Jeroen; Hindricks, Gerhard; Manolis, Antonis S.; Oldgren, Jonas; Popescu, Bogdan Alexandru; Schotten, Ulrich; Van Putte, Bart; Vardas, Panagiotis; Agewall, Stefan; Camm, John; Baron Esquivias, Gonzalo; Budts, Werner; Carerj, Scipione; Casselman, Filip; Coca, Antonio; De Caterina, Raffaele; Deftereos, Spiridon; Dobrev, Dobromir; Ferro, José M.; Filippatos, Gerasimos; Fitzsimons, Donna; Gorenek, Bulent; Guenoun, Maxine; Hohnloser, Stefan H.; Kolh, Philippe; Lip, Gregory Y. H.; Manolis, Athanasios; McMurray, John; Ponikowski, Piotr; Rosenhek, Raphael; Ruschitzka, Frank; Savelieva, Irina; Sharma, Sanjay; Suwalski, Piotr; Tamargo, Juan Luis; Taylor, Clare J.; Van Gelder, Isabelle C.; Voors, Adriaan A.; Windecker, Stephan; Zamorano, Jose Luis; Zeppenfeld, Katja (1 November 2016). "2016 ESC Guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation developed in collaboration with EACTS". European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. 50 (5): e1 –e88. doi:10.1093/ejcts/ezw313. PMID27663299.
Dickstein, Kenneth; Cohen-Solal, Alain; Filippatos, Gerasimos; McMurray, John J.V.; Ponikowski, Piotr; Poole-Wilson, Philip Alexander; Strömberg, Anna; van Veldhuisen, Dirk J.; Atar, Dan; Hoes, Arno W.; Keren, Andre; Mebazaa, Alexandre; Nieminen, Markku; Priori, Silvia Giuliana; Swedberg, Karl; Vahanian, Alec; Camm, John; De Caterina, Raffaele; Dean, Veronica; Dickstein, Kenneth; Filippatos, Gerasimos; Funck-Brentano, Christian; Hellemans, Irene; Kristensen, Steen Dalby; McGregor, Keith; Sechtem, Udo; Silber, Sigmund; Tendera, Michal; Widimsky, Petr; Zamorano, Jose Luis; Tendera, Michal; Auricchio, Angelo; Bax, Jeroen; Böhm, Michael; Corrà, Ugo; della Bella, Paolo; Elliott, Perry M.; Follath, Ferenc; Gheorghiade, Mihai; Hasin, Yonathan; Hernborg, Anders; Jaarsma, Tiny; Komajda, Michel; Kornowski, Ran; Piepoli, Massimo; Prendergast, Bernard; Tavazzi, Luigi; Vachiery, Jean-Luc; Verheugt, Freek W. A.; Zamorano, Jose Luis; Zannad, Faiez (October 2008). "ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure 2008". European Journal of Heart Failure. 10 (10): 933–989. doi:10.1016/j.ejheart.2008.08.005. hdl:11370/39fe5358-748d-454d-92ba-145e91d23cc9. PMID18826876. S2CID70779035.
In 2015, he was awarded the annual Cardiology Prize (Storstein's Prize) by the Norwegian Society of Cardiology.
In 2023, Dan Atar received the ‘Lifetime Award for Heart Research’ from the Norwegian National Association for Public Health,[6] bestowed by His Majesty King Harald V of Norway.
