The Cardiovascular Research Foundation has announced that its TCT 2023 Career Achievement Award will be presented to Stuart J. Pocock, PhD, of the Department of Medical Statistics and Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine during its Oct. 23-26 conference. Image courtesy: CRF
October 10, 2023 — The recipients of two prestigious awards — the Career Achievement Award and the TCT Geoffrey O. Hartzler Master Operator Award — have been announced by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) ahead of its annual scientific symposium, the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference. TCT 2023, will take place October 23-October 26 at the Moscone Center in in San Francisco, California.
Now in its 5th year, TCT described as the world’s premier meeting for interventional cardiovascular medicine. The four-day event serves as a global educational forum specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine, offering a comprehensive, practical and interactive experience led by experts in coronary, structural, and endovascular interventions.
TCT 2023 Career Achievement Award
This award recognizes significant contributions to the field of interventional cardiology and transforming patient care through career endeavors, research pursuits, and mentorship of others. This year’s recipient will be Stuart J. Pocock, PhD, of the Department of Medical Statistics and Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“We couldn’t be more honored to bestow this award upon Stuart,” said TCT Program Director Gary S. Mintz, MD. He added, “Throughout his career, he has championed the importance of properly designed and executed clinical trials, especially in the field of interventional cardiology, helping to establish it as an academically focused, data-driven field.”
In congratulating Pocock, TCT wrote this of his life’s work:
Professor Stuart Pocock is a behind-the-scenes giant in bringing lifesaving and quality-of-life-enhancing therapies to individuals with cardiovascular disease. As a professor of medical statistics for more than three decades at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, he uses his statistical and methodological expertise to bring forth the evidence for (or against, when relevant) cutting-edge technologies in interventional cardiovascular medicine and heart failure. Through his innovative statistical approaches, Professor Pocock’s work has provided vital, data-driven insights for clinicians to use in their daily practice and made immeasurable contributions to the body of evidence-based literature in cardiology.
His primary research interests center around major clinical trials in cardiology, focusing on methodological developments and applied collaboration; he is also interested in observational epidemiology, particularly pharmaco-epidemiology. Professor Pocock earned his PhD and MSc in medical statistics at London University, and his BSc in mathematics at Cambridge University.
Currently, Professor Pocock, along with his colleagues, directs a statistical center for the design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of major clinical trials, chiefly in cardiovascular diseases. A frequent lecturer on a variety of clinical trial topics, he is also a consulting expert statistician for a wide range of clinical trials and serves as a statistical member of many trial data-monitoring and steering committees. He is proud of his ongoing international collaborations with, among others, the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares, in Madrid; and the Cardiovascular Research Foundation and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York. He is the author of a popular textbook, “Clinical Trials: A Practical Approach,” and more than 600 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
His intent has been to optimize the scientific collaboration between statisticians and cardiologists/researchers, always ensuring that complexities are clearly explained. His wisdom, teaching, and leadership have guided many students, fellows, and colleagues in both statistics and medicine to undertake successful careers in medical research.
TCT 2023 Geoffrey O. Hartzler Master Operator Award
William L. Lombardi, MD
This year’s recipient of the TCT Geoffrey O. Hartzler Master Operator Award, recognizing superior operator skills and leadership in interventional cardiovascular medicine, is William L. Lombardi, MD. His roles at University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle (WA) include Clinical Professor of Medicine, Director of Complex Coronary Artery Disease Therapies, and Attending Physician.
"Bill is a passionate, intuitive, and creative master interventional operator, and a dedicated mentor who has devoted his career to improving and refining CTO and complex coronary techniques and technologies,” said Martin B. Leon, MD, Founder and Chairman Emeritus of CRF. Leon, with Columbia University Department of Medicine Cardiology Division leader, continued, “As a humanist and clinician in his daily practice, he’s always striving to improve his skills and methods to perform safer and more efficient procedures, so that patients benefit from the best available treatments."
In acknowledging the impressive work that led to his earning the award, TCT offered the following:
A world-renowned expert in complex coronary disease therapies, Lombardi has been one of the highest-volume complex PCI and chronic total occlusion (CTO) operators in the world for more than a decade. Deeply engaged in developing novel CTO techniques and technologies, he is noted for helping to create and educate on a hybrid algorithm that facilitates successful, reproducible outcomes in CTO and complex lesion percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). He has been involved with more than 20 new technologies that improve PCI, including guide wires, microcatheters, specialty balloons, and novel approaches to reduce radiation and orthopedic injuries to operators.
Lombardi completed his M.D. at Tulane Medical School, in New Orleans, and went on to the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, for his internal medicine residency and fellowships in cardiology, heart failure/cardiac transplant, and interventional cardiology. The TCT overview noted that Lombardi continues to innovate at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle as a clinical professor of medicine and the director of Complex Coronary Disease Therapies. The author of more than 100 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and nine book chapters on CTO-PCI, he has also delivered more than 200 invited lectures and has been the principal investigator or co-investigator on more than 30 clinical trials.
Lombardi’s focus remains on improving outcomes through numerous collaborations with colleagues in the field and teaching the next generation of CTO operators.
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is a nonprofit organization specializing in interventional cardiology innovation, research, and education, and is dedicated to helping doctors improve survival and quality of life for people suffering from heart and vascular disease. The Foundation reports that for over 30 years, it has helped accelerate medical breakthroughs and educated doctors on the latest treatments for heart disease. CRF’s centers of excellence include the CRF Skirball Center for Innovation, CRF Clinical Trials Center, CRF Center for Education, CRF Digital, TCTMD, and Structural Heart: The Journal of the Heart Team.
Every year, the CRF’s Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference, TCT, founded in 1988 by Martin B. Leon, MD, features major medical research breakthroughs, and gathers leading researchers and clinicians from around the world to present and discuss the latest evidence-based research.
More information: www.tct2023.crfconnect.com; or www.crf.org
June 08, 2023 
