Demetri Yannopoulos

Demetri Yannopoulos is a Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a key figure in the Center for Resuscitation Medicine. He specializes in improving cardiac care access statewide through initiatives like the Minnesota Mobile Resuscitation Consortium, which launched an ECMO truck, three ECMO SUVs, and equipped first responders with advanced defibrillators. His clinical expertise spans internal medicine, cardiology, and interventional cardiology, with a focus on emergent cardiac care, coronary artery disease, and peripheral interventions.

Yannopoulos’s research centers on cardiopulmonary resuscitation, therapeutic hypothermia, and myocardial salvage during acute coronary syndromes. His collaborative work with Dr. Keith Lurie (University of Minnesota) and Dr. Henry Halperin (Johns Hopkins University) has redefined CPR methodologies. He chairs the American Heart Association’s (AHA) CPR guidelines-writing committee and organizes the AHA’s Resuscitation Science Symposium (ReSS), the largest international conference on CPR and emergency cardiac care.

• UMN Dean’s Distinguished Research Leadership Award (2015)
• AHA Heart & Stroke Hero Award (2015)
• AHA Young Investigator Award (2014) for “The Effect of Achieving Return of Spontaneous Circulation on Mitochondrial Respiration Following Prolonged Cardiac Arrest”

Yannopoulos actively promotes cardiac awareness and has pioneered mobile cardiac life support programs. His contributions bridge clinical practice, research innovation, and public health policy to enhance cardiac arrest survival rates.