The Samuel Bellet Associate Professorship of Medicine in Cardiology

Jean Bellet GreenThe Bellet Professorship was established in 1972 by the Foundation for Cardiovascular Research and by Jean Bellet Green, the widow of Samuel Bellet, MD (1902–1971). Jean Bellet Green (d. 2006) was President of the Foundation and an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania Class of 1941.

Dr. Bellet was revered as a Professor of Clinical Cardiology at the Perelman School of Medicine and respected world-wide as an accomplished teacher, researcher and clinician. His contributions to the field of cardiology earned him numerous distinctions, including membership in the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke. He also served as a consultant and advisor to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Karachi, Pakistan.

Arany photoCurrent Chairholder

Zoltan Arany, MD, PhD

Zoltan (Zolt) Arany, MD, PhD is the Samuel Bellet Professor of Cardiology and Director of the Cardiovascular Metabolism Program at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Arany graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College. He received his Medical Degree from Harvard Medical School and his doctoral degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. After his doctoral studies, Dr. Arany completed internal medicine residency training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by fellowship training in cardiology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He joined the University of Pennsylvania in 2014. 

Dr. Arany’s laboratory focuses on the mechanisms that underlie metabolic pathophysiology in the cardiovascular system. He focuses on linking investigations of cardiac and vascular physiology in model organisms to clinical data and observations. His multidisciplinary approach spans molecular biology and numerous omic approaches to model organisms and human clinical studies. Recent focus in Dr. Arany’s laboratory has included the metabolic changes that underlie human heart failure, the role of the vasculature in the development of diabetes and maternal cardiac disease during and after pregnancy. Dr. Arany is also an active clinical cardiologist, teacher and mentor. He is the current Chair of the Cellular Biology Physiology and Metabolism Graduate Group.  

Dr. Arany is the recipient of several awards, including the American Heart Association Established Investigator Award in 2012, the Dvorak Young Investigator Award in Translational Research and the prestigious inaugural Yale Calabresi Prize in 2014 in recognition for his work on cardiovascular metabolism. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and of the Association of American Physicians. Dr. Arany has published more than 130 research papers in prominent journals such as New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Cell, Science, Circulation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Cell Metabolism and Nature Metabolism. He is regularly invited to speak nationally and internationally on his basic and translational research in cardiovascular metabolism. He has also received a number of teaching and mentoring awards. 

Previous Chairholders

  • Bruce N. Goldreyer, MD 1972–1973
  • John W. Hirschfeld, Jr., MD 1973–1978
  • Mark I. Josephson, MD 1978–1980
  • Leonard Horowitz, MD 1980–1981
  • Michael B. Simson, MD 1983-2020