The Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) Foundation conferred its annual awards for scientific research and philanthropy on March 25 at the SIR 2019 meeting in Austin, TX.
The foundation bestowed its Leaders in Innovation Award posthumously to William Cook, founder of medical device manufacturer Cook Medical. Cook in 1964 worked on the first angioplasty procedure with Dr. Charles Dotter, who is recognized as the founder of interventional radiology. Cook died in 2011.
The recipient of the Dr. Gary J. Becker Young Investigator Award, which recognizes promising young practitioners, was Dr. Etay Ziv, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Ziv developed a research program that specializes in personalized medicine for the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors.
The foundation also presented its Resident/Fellow Research Award to Dr. Julie Cronan from Emory University School of Medicine and Dr. Ehsan Fayazzadeh from the Cleveland Clinic.
With its Dr. Constantin Cope Medical Student Research Award, the foundation recognized the following students: Damir Ljuboja from Harvard Medical School, Arif Musa from Wayne State University School of Medicine, Isabel Schobert from Yale School of Medicine, Stephen Rodriguez from University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Neil Jain from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Adam Schmitz from Indiana University School of Medicine.
The SIR Foundation also presented the Dr. Frederick S. Keller Philanthropy Award to John Abele for his "generous support of scientific research." Abele is co-founder and director of Boston Scientific and received the SIR gold medal in 2005.
