| 1 | Name: | Dr. Richard John Bing | |
| Institution: | Huntington Medical Research Institutes & University of Southern California | ||
| Year Elected: | 1995 | ||
| Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1909 | ||
| Death Date: | November 8, 2010 | ||
Richard J. Bing was born in Germany in 1909 and went on to become one of the great cardiologists of our time. In a career spanning more than sixty years, he pioneered the application of basic sciences to the study of the human heart. His early investigations were devoted to the mechanism of hypertension. He made seminal discoveries on the mechanism of congenital heart disease and of congestive heart failure by using physical and biochemical techniques and pioneered coincidence counting in the determination of coronary flow and in heart imaging. This work laid the foundation for modern PET scanning techniques. His investigation on cardiac metabolism showed that heart failure is related to possible defects in contractile proteins. Dr. Bing taught and conducted research at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Alabama and was chairman of medicine at Washington University's Veterans Administration Hospital. In 1959 he became chairman of the Department of Medicine at Wayne State University and in 1969 he was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Southern California. He joined Huntington Medical Research Institutes in 1969 to do biomedical research and also started the internal medicine residency program at Huntington Hospital. His major achievements there have included high-speed cinematography of coronary vessels and studies of the chemistry of the heart after a heart attack. Dr. Bing also followed a highly successful second career as a distinguished musician and composer. His chamber music has been performed by professional ensembles including the Chamber Players of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His Mass had its premier performance by the Vienna Philharmonic at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna in 1993. Richard John Bing died on November 8, 2010, at the age of 101, at his home in the Los Angeles-area community of La Canada Flintridge. | |||