Biography
Daniel H. Drake, M.D. graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1982. Following a general surgery residency in Texas he returned to the University of Michigan for a fellowship in Thoracic Surgery. Dr. Drake co-founded Munson Medical Center’s cardiothoracic surgery (CTS) program in 1990 and practiced in the Cardiothoracic Surgeons of Grand Traverse for 28 years.
Dr. Drake served as President of the Michigan Society of Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgeons from 1999 until 2001. He speaks nationally and internationally on image-guidance for mitral disease. He is a member of the American Society of Echocardiography Council on Perioperative Echocardiography and editorial board of the American Society of Echocardiography journal CASE. Dr. Drake serves on the Board of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Standards and Ethics Committee and is a member of the Cardiothoracic Ethics Forum.
After a long clinical career focused on cardiac valve imaging and complex mitral reconstruction, Dr. Drake transitioned to laboratory translational research and teaching. He prepared for this transition by spending two years as a research fellow in the University of Michigan Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS) Laboratory under the mentorship of Professor Emeritus Robert H. Bartlett. His research focus is on extracorporeal life support, organ banking and nitric oxide. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Drake relocated to the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Laboratory in Columbia, Missouri where he facilitated the development of an aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 model of pneumonia for testing the anti-viral efficacy of nitric oxide. He is supported by NIH funding and other grants.