Adam’s Heart Valve Surgery Blog

Blog Topics: Lasker Award; Heart Valve Doctor Recipients; Dr. Alain Carpentier; Dr. Albert Starr; Dr. Albert Starr; Mechanical Heart Valve Replacements; Edwards Valve Replacements

Hi everybody,

Some very exciting news for the heart valve surgery community… Two scientists were honored over the weekend by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation for their development of artificial heart valves, which have saved the lives of millions of heart disease patients over the past five decades.

Alain Carpentier, a professor of vascular surgery at Hospital European Georges Pompidou in Paris, and Albert Starr, the director of academic affairs at Providence Health System in Oregon, are the recipients of the 2007 Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.

The awards, often called “American Nobels,” have been given since 1946 to those who have made outstanding contributions to medical research. According to the foundation, 72 winners of the Lasker Awards have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

Albert Starr, working with the late engineer Lowell Edwards, invented the first successful artificial heart valve in 1958. After two years of testing on dogs, Starr performed the first valve-replacement surgery on a man at the University of Oregon Medical School. Now 90,000 people a year in the USA have heart valves replaced. Roughly half of the valves are mechanical.

Dr. Alain Carpentier’s work in the 1960s with pig-tissue valves mounted in Teflon-coated metallic frames addressed the major shortcoming of synthetic valves: the higher risk of clot formation.

Impressed with Alain Carpentier’s device, Albert Starr introduced him to Edwards, and the two developed a commercial product. The technique for making Carpentier’s valves is still used today, as is the 1965 version of the Starr-Edwards valve.

Congratulations to both Alain Carpentier and Albert Starr!!!!

To learn more about Edwards valve replacements, click here.

Keep on tickin,

Adam

Adam Pick is the author of The Patient’s Guide To Heart Valve Surgery, a unique book which integrates the clinical facts of heart valve surgery with the personal experiences of an actual heart valve surgery patient. This special book was designed to help patients and caregivers better understand the realities of heart valve surgery, to minimize stress and to enhance the patient’s recovery. To learn more about Adam’s heart valve surgery book, click here.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 10:01 am and is filed under Heart Valve Surgery, Announcements, Heart Surgery Options. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print This Post | EMail This Post.