William Erle Kraus

William Erle Kraus is a Duke physician-scientist whose work connects preventive cardiology, cardiac rehabilitation, exercise prescription, and the molecular biology of skeletal muscle. He is Richard and Pat Johnson University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Medicine at Duke, Professor in the School of Nursing, and a member of the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute. His research addresses exercise and cardiometabolic health, including physiologic regulation of gene expression and metabolic capacity in skeletal muscle. He has served as medical director of the Duke Cardiac Rehabilitation Program since 1994 and maintains a clinical focus on heart-disease prevention, rehabilitation, and older-athlete performance. Kraus earned an MD from Duke in 1982, completed internal medicine training there from 1983 to 1986, and cardiovascular disease fellowship from 1986 to 1988. In 2004, he was director of clinical research at Duke’s Center for Living and an associate professor of medicine in cardiology.