Professional Titles

  • Director of Cardiovascular Research
  • Associate Chief of Cardiology
  • Chair, American Heart Association, Peer Review Subcommittee
  • Member, American Heart Association Research Committee
  • Adjunct Professor, University of Utah
  • Professor, University of California San Diego

Research and Professional Experience

Dr. Kirk Knowlton came to Intermountain Heart Institute in January 2016 from the University of California, San Diego, where he served as the Chief of Cardiology and Vice-Chair of Medicine for Laboratory Research.

Throughout his career, he has had a strong interest in understanding how and why patients develop heart failure. This includes abnormalities in DNA, infections of the heart like viral myocarditis, and the role of immune function in heart cells that affect cardiac performance. Dr. Knowlton has also made important discoveries related to how heart cells communicate with each other to establish normal conduction.

Dr. Knowlton has published his research in journals such as Nature Medicine, Science, Circulation, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. He has served on numerous research committees with the American Heart Association, the Sarnoff Foundation, and recently fulfilled two years as President of the American Heart Association, Western States Affiliate.

Dr. Knowlton also maintains an active clinical practice as a general cardiologist with a focus on heart failure and pulmonary hypertension. He is excited to join the team at Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute where he can apply his research efforts to preventing the development of heart disease, promoting optimal recovery, and advancing the use of a person’s own biological characteristics to provide precision medicine.

Finally, he believes that Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute is ideally situated to make major advances in the field of cardiovascular genetics. Our resources include a plasma and DNA repository, next-generation DNA sequencing, electronic health data, and genealogy databases. Combined, these resources allow us to learn from the long-term outcomes of patients with all types of heart disease matched with extensive information on family history and genetic mutations.