Katherine Leon, co-founder and Board Chair of SCAD Alliance,

The Health Design Podcast

Katherine Leon is co-founder and Board Chair of SCAD Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to research of spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), a non-atherosclerotic cause of heart attack and sudden cardiac arrest. In 2003, Katherine survived a 90% blockage of her left main artery caused by SCAD, which required emergency double bypass surgery. Finding no clinical studies of SCAD had been conducted, she pursued this goal by finding other SCAD patients online and compiling anecdotal data. She collaborated with Mayo Clinic in 2010 to facilitate a virtual registry of SCAD patients worldwide. In 2013, Katherine co-founded SCAD Alliance, a 501c3. In addition to patient support and advocacy, SCAD Alliance sponsors the independent, multi-center iSCAD Registry. In its first two years, iSCAD Registry launched 17 sites across the U.S., with four in progress, and enrolled 644 patients. Katherine earned a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Virginia and a Master of Science at Northwestern University.