The ASAIO Board of Trustees has named Dr. O.H. Frazier, recipient of the prestigious Pushpa and Kewal Krishan Gupta Lifetime Achievement Award in Development of Therapies for Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Diseases.

This distinguished honor recognizes Dr. Frazier’s outstanding contributions to the field of heart transplantation and cardiac-assisted devices over his illustrious career.

Dr. Frazier’s remarkable achievements will be celebrated during the ASAIO 70th Anniversary Conference on May 30th, following the Presidential Address.

Dr. Frazier, a globally renowned transplant and mechanical circulatory support surgeon, has revolutionized the treatment of severe heart failure through his leadership, innovation, and ingenuity. In the words of Pramod Bonde, MD, ASAIO President, “Dr. O.H. Frazier’s impact on patients and the specialty is immeasurable, and his dedication to improving patient outcomes and advancing medical technology exemplifies the spirit of ASAIO.”

Formerly known as the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs, ASAIO is a world-class society that has been in existence for over 64 years and strives to “save lives one medical device at a time and represents a unique catalyst for finding new therapies for organ failure while seeking to shorten the commercialization cycle by adding access to representatives to the Food and Drug Administration, government funding agencies (such as NIH), and the financial community.

Due largely to ASAIO and its members, artificial hearts, lungs, kidneys, blood vessels, and joints are now common practice and entirely new fields of clinical medicine have emerged in additional specialties of medicine, including nephrology, cardiac and vascular surgery, transplantation, and intensive care.

For five decades, Dr. Frazier has been dedicated to improving the treatment of severe heart failure and advancing heart transplantation and artificial devices that substitute or assist with the pumping action of the human heart. He served on the NIH National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Advisory Committee and chaired the original committee that initiated the first federal allocation system to distribute hearts for transplantation. As a result of his work, Dr. Frazier is one of the world’s top transplantation and mechanical circulatory support surgeons. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Frazier conducted experimental work toward developing an implantable LVAD. In 2011, he implanted the first successful continuous-flow total artificial heart by using two second-generation HeartMate II LVADs to replace a patient’s failing heart. ( Visit History & Timeline )

“Dr. Frazier’s Lifetime Achievement Award from this world-class society dedicated to the advancement of innovative medical device technology underscores his many exceptional contributions and serves as a testament to his lasting impact on the field of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases,” said Dr. Joseph G. Rogers, President and CEO of The Texas Heart Institute.