Subodh Verma

MD, PhD, FRCSC, FAHA

Scientist

Biography

Please note: Dr. Verma will not take students in summer.

Dr. Subodh Verma is an internationally renowned cardiac surgeon-scientist and Professor at the University of Toronto. He is the current Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Surgery, having previously served as the Canada Research Chair in Atherosclerosis (2007-2017). Dr. Verma was recently awarded the 2021 Lister Prize in Surgery from the University of Toronto in recognition of his outstanding and continuing productivity of international stature. He is a past recipient of the Howard Morgan Award for Distinguished Achievements in Cardiovascular Research and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Gold Medal in Surgery. He is an appointee of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons (AATS) and a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, Royal Society of Canada. According to Google Scholar in April 2021, Dr. Verma has an h-index of 100 and his work has been cited over 50,000 times.

Dr. Verma has published extensively in highly impactful journals like the NEJM, Lancet, Circulation, JACC, Nature, and JCI. He is an Associate Editor of the European Heart Journal. Dr. Verma is an active contributor to Canadian clinical practice guidelines and co-authored the recently updated recommendations for atrial fibrillation, antiplatelet therapy, diabetes, and heart failure; he was a member of the 2018 AATS consensus guidelines committee on bicuspid aortic valve-related aortopathy. Dr. Verma has served in various capacities on the American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia since 2008.

Dr. Verma had/has leadership roles on 10 contemporary global heart failure trials – several of which have let to paradigm changes in how individuals all around the world who live with diabetes and heart failure are now managed. He founded and oversees the CardioLink platform at St Michael’s Hospital that is conducting cardiometabolic and surgically oriented RCTs and translational studies.

Dr. Verma leads a dynamic pre-clinical and translational research team that leverages pre-clinical disease models and clinical trial-derived data to identify novel mediators of cardiovascular and cardiometabolic disease as well as answer timely and relevant healthcare questions. His research has yielded 2 United States patents and is supported by several national peer-reviewed grants.

 

Recent Publications

  1. Dhingra, NK, Butler, J, Anker, SD, Ferreira, JP, Filippatos, G, Pfarr, E et al.. Empagliflozin in Heart Failure and Previous Coronary Revascularization: Insights From EMPEROR-Pooled. JACC Adv. 2026;5 (1):102419. doi: 10.1016/j.jacadv.2025.102419. PubMed PMID:41609275 .
  2. Butt, JH, Henderson, AD, Jhund, PS, Claggett, BL, Desai, AS, Borentain, M et al.. Finerenone, Liver Biomarkers, and Heart Failure With Mildly Reduced/Preserved Ejection Fraction: An Analysis of FINEARTS-HF. Circ Heart Fail. 2026; :e013201. doi: 10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.125.013201. PubMed PMID:41608790 .
  3. Odutayo, A, Bhatt, DL, Sridhar, VS, Szarek, M, Cannon, CP, Leiter, LA et al.. Association Between the 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Heart Failure Staging and Cardiovascular and Kidney Outcomes in Patients With Diabetes and Kidney Disease: A Post Hoc Analysis of the SCORED Randomized Controlled Trial. Circ Heart Fail. 2026; :e013054. doi: 10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.125.013054. PubMed PMID:41569429 .
  4. Sourij, H, Guder Arslan, E, Catarig, AM, Houlind, K, Ludvik, B, Nordanstig, J et al.. Improvement in Walking Distance With Semaglutide in Smokers With Peripheral Artery Disease: STRIDE Trial Subgroup Analysis. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2025; :. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2025.10.080. PubMed PMID:41532935 .
  5. Verma, S, Böttcher, M, Brown, P, Dicker, D, Rubino, D, Sbraccia, P et al.. CagriSema Reduces Blood Pressure in Adults With Overweight or Obesity: REDEFINE 1. Hypertension. 2026;83 (2):e26055. doi: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.125.26055. PubMed PMID:41328546 PubMed Central PMC12822771.
  6. Gaudino, M, Sandner, S, Voisine, P, Glineur, D, Redfors, B, Verma, S et al.. Time to Assess the Role of Quality Control in CABG: The SMARTFLOW Trial Program. Eur J Cardiothorac Surg. 2025;67 (12):. doi: 10.1093/ejcts/ezaf425. PubMed PMID:41317366 .
  7. Pandey, A, Moroney, M, Verma, S, Borlaug, BA, Butler, J, Davies, MJ et al.. Effects of semaglutide in obesity-related heart failure with preserved ejection fraction across the age spectrum: Findings from the STEP-HFpEF programme. Eur J Heart Fail. 2025;27 (11):2537-2543. doi: 10.1002/ejhf.70049. PubMed PMID:41290376 PubMed Central PMC12765414.
  8. Chunawala, Z, Patel, KV, Garcia, KR, Segar, MW, Verma, S, Bayes-Genis, A et al.. Cardiac Biomarkers, Intensive Lifestyle Intervention, and Heart Failure Subtypes in Diabetes: Look AHEAD Cardiac Biomarker Ancillary Study. JACC Heart Fail. 2025; :102726. doi: 10.1016/j.jchf.2025.102726. PubMed PMID:41204924 .
  9. Inciardi, RM, Lu, H, Claggett, BL, Desai, AS, Jhund, PS, Henderson, AD et al.. Finerenone in patients with severe heart failure: The FINEARTS-HF trial. Eur J Heart Fail. 2025;27 (12):2777-2787. doi: 10.1002/ejhf.70083. PubMed PMID:41186217 PubMed Central PMC12803546.
  10. Verma, S, Bhatt, DL. Parsing the Adipokine Axis in HFpEF. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2025;86 (16):1252-1255. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2025.08.035. PubMed PMID:41093492 .
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Affiliations & Other Activities

  • Cardiac Surgeon, Division of Cardiology , St. Michael’s Hospital
  • Professor of Surgery and Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Toronto
  • Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Surgery