The current revolution in arrhythmia genetics owes much of its recent rapid evolution from laboratory curiosity to clinical practice to Mark Keating. Dr. Keating is a Texan who received his MD degree at Johns Hopkins, where he served his medical residency followed by fellowship in clinical cardiology at UCSF. He then spent four years at the end of the 80's in the laboratory of Rusty Williams at the CVRI, studying platelet derived growth factor. In 1989, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics at the University of Utah, where he turned his attention to the long QT syndrome. In 1991, Dr. Keating's laboratory was the first to report linkage of the long QT syndrome to a specific locus, on chromosome 11. He found that other kindreds linked to different chromosomal loci and used a candidate gene approach to identify HERG, SCN5A, and minK as long QT syndrome disease genes. A positional cloning approach to the chromosome 11 locus yielded the new gene, KvLQT1. Dr. Keating has also collaborated in studies identifying MiRP1 as a long QT disease gene and mutations in SCN5A in idiopathic ventricular fibrillation. Dr. Keating's laboratory has also made seminal contributions to our understanding of the genetic basis of cardiomyopathies and of William's syndrome and other arteriopathies. He has delivered the Kober Lecture at the annual meeting of the Association of American Physicians and has received the Edgar Haber Cardiovascular Medicine Research Award from the American Heart Association and the ASCI's annual award in clinical investigation. Earlier this fall, he moved to Harvard Medical School as Professor in the Departments of Cell Biology and Medicine and as Professor in Cardiology at the Children's Hospital