All-New Award Honors Longtime Executive Director Amanda Rowe
At the closing plenary session of ISHLT2021, the Society announced the creation of the ISHLT Amanda W. Rowe Distinguished Service Award, an award designed to recognize individuals and organizations that have made non-scientific contributions to ISHLT as an organization. The inaugural award was given to its namesake,
Amanda W. Rowe, who retired in 2020 after having served as ISHLT Executive Director for 27 years.
Rowe presided over the Society as it grew from a few hundred members to a global voice for the field, with nearly 4,000 members in 45 countries.
At the closing plenary, Rowe was honored by Stuart Sweet, MD, ISHLT Immediate Past President. “Under Amanda’s leadership,” Dr. Sweet said, “ISHLT grew to become the world’s premier scientific professional and educational organization for heart and lung transplantation and mechanical circulatory support.”
“It’s been an amazing job for 28 years, an amazing career, with unforgettable memories, a lot of hard work, and also—so much fun, and so many wonderful people,” Rowe said as she received the award. “I’ll never forget ISHLT.”
Dr. Sweet also shared that with the creation of the ISHLT Amanda W. Rowe Distinguished Service Award, the ISHLT Board of Directors hoped to create an award that embodies Amanda’s extraordinary service. Going forward, the Award will be given to individuals or organizations for sustained, significant, and outstanding service to ISHLT.
Watch a quick video honoring Amanda Rowe on the ISHLT YouTube channel.
ISHLT Awards Three Research Grants
Also at the closing plenary session, ISHLT awarded three grants to researchers in the fields of heart transplantation, MCS, and VAD coordination.
ISHLT/O.H. Frazier Award in MCS Translational Research, Sponsored by Medtronic
The lauded Frazier award was given in 2021 to
Vakhtang Tchantchaleishvili, MD, of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA USA. The work is entitled “Impact of Continuous-Flow Mechanical Circulatory Support on Cerebrospinal Fluid Motility,” and is designed to build understanding of the impact of blood pumps on the brain and spinal fluid flow of a patient. With the funding, Dr. Tchantchaleishvili’s team will build an accurate model of the cardiovascular system, brain, and spinal fluid flow to better understand conditions that arise while using a blood pump and devise new treatment solutions for patients with heart failure.
ISHLT and
Medtronic have collaborated to give the Frazier award, which aims to improve patient outcomes, since 2014, making Dr. Tchantchaleishvili the eighth person to win this award.
ISHLT/ICCAC VAD Coordinator Career Development Award, Sponsored by Medtronic
The second annual ISHLT/ICCAC VAD Coordinator Career Development Award was presented to
Yu Wu, DNP, ACNP, of the University of California San Francisco in San Francisco, CA USA. Her work is entitled “Impact of a Prehabilitation Program on LVAD implantation surgical outcomes.” The single-center study will assess the impact of a prehabilitation program on the outcomes of patients undergoing LVAD implantation. The program will include education, exercise, and nutritional augmentation and will focus on optimizing patients’ functional capacity prior to their LVAD implantation. The team posits that focused prehabilitation will improve clinical outcomes, quality of life, and expedite the VAD patient’s return to a productive and satisfying level of ADLs.
This is the second year for the VAD Coordinator Career Development Award, which is a collaboration of
ISHLT,
ICCAC, and
Medtronic. The award aims to provide professional development for VAD coordinators while optimizing patient outcomes.
ISHLT/Enduring Hearts Transplant Longevity Research Award
The 2021 ISHLT/Enduring Hearts Transplant Longevity Research Award was presented to
Christian Heim, MD, MHBA, of the University of Erlangen in Erlangen, Germany. His work is entitled “Antiproliferative treatment options for chronic rejection after heart transplantation.” The work will assess the effectiveness of pirfenidone and nintedanib, both alone and together, in the prevention of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) and chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD), particularly bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS). Promising results from this experiment mean it could be possible to rededicate the use of nintedanib and pirfenidone from IPF treatment to heart and lung transplant recipients to prevent the development of CAV and BOS. This would improve and prolong post-transplant survival, of great importance especially for pediatric recipients.
This bi-annual award is fully funded by the nonprofit
Enduring Hearts and co-presented by
ISHLT and Enduring Hearts, and offers researchers significant financial resources for work that furthers the scientific understanding of the determinants of transplanted heart longevity, thereby improving the quality and duration of life.
Joint Symposia: ISHLT/TTS: Meeting Ethical Challenges in Transplantation Through Global Partnership
The final day of the annual meeting also featured the final of three joint symposia at ISHLT2021, a collaboration between ISHLT and
The Transplant Society (TTS).
This joint symposium featured six talks:
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Cultural and Religious Implications in the Donation and Transplant Process, presented by Marta Farrero Torres, MD, PhD, of Hospital Clinic de Barcelona
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Transplantation Across International Borders: The Ethical Challenges, presented by Peter Stock, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco
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Established International Collaborations in Organ Sharing: Benefits and Challenges, presented by Are Holm, MD, PhD, of Oslo University Hospital
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Transplant Tourism: Recipients Crossing Borders, presented by Komarakshi Balakrishnan, MS, MCh, of MGM Hospital
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Partnerships for Establishing Deceased Donor Transplant Programs in Emerging Countries, presented by Richard Allen, MBBS, Westmead Hospital
- Organ Transplantation in China, presented by Jeremy Chapman, MD, The University of Sydney
The session was developed to address the many challenges of organ transplantation across borders, with a special focus on ethical issues and the importance of intercultural collaboration. No matter your specialty, this talk has something for you. If you missed it, the session will be available for viewing on-demand until 30 July, 2021.