Jonathan M. Tobis, MD, earned his undergraduate degree from Amherst College and his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York. He completed his residencies at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, New York, and the University of California Irvine/UCI Medical Center in Orange, California. His fellowship training in cardiology was also at the University of California Irvine. Subsequently, Dr Tobis held positions including director of interventional cardiology and its fellowship program at UCLA, and director of cardiac catheterization laboratories, acting chief of the division of cardiology, director of the cardiology fellowship training program, and professor of medicine and radiology at the University of California Irvine/UCI Medical Center.

Currently, Dr. Tobis is the director of interventional cardiology research and clinical professor of medicine at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and a Master Fellow of the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions [MSCAI]. In addition, Dr. Tobis is a member of the American Heart Association and the American College of Physicians.

Dr. Tobis was a leader in developing digital angiography, and his lab was the first in the world to perform digital left ventricular and coronary angiograms. He also helped to develop one of the first mechanically rotating intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging devices. He then worked with Antonio Colombo in Milan, Italy and used IVUS to help understand the mechanism of coronary angioplasty, atherectomy, and stenting. This use of IVUS to optimize coronary stenting led to its safer use, which permitted the widespread adoption of coronary stenting for angioplasty. His current research projects include the role of patent foramen ovale (PFO) in stroke, migraine headaches, and hypoxemia. This work has led to the description of a new syndrome of Prinzmetal’s angina, migraine, and PFO due to coronary artery spasm that is reversible by closing the right to left shunt.

In 2024, in recognition of his contributions to research and patient care, an endowed chair in interventional cardiology at UCLA was established in his name.