HeartWare draws extensively on its Medical Advisory Board to...

HeartWare draws extensively on its Medical Advisory Board to guide both clinical and product development strategies. Our Advisory Board comprises a group of pre-eminent cardiac surgeons and cardiologists.

O. Howard 'Bud' Frazier, MD
Chairman & Chief Transplant Services, Director Cardiovascular Research, Texas Heart Institute

For more than 25 years, Dr Frazier has been a pioneer in the surgical treatment of severe heart failure. He has been director of cardiopulmonary transplantation for 20 years. He serves on the editorial boards of several distinguished medical journals, including Circulation, the premier journal of the American Heart Association. He has authored or co-authored more than 1,000 scientific publications, presented over 1,200 lectures around the world, and written or edited numerous books in the field.

Dr Frazier is a former chairman of the Federal Affairs Committee for the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs and has served on other prominent committees, including the Education Committee of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the Advisory Board of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. In 2001, he was elected president of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs.

Dr Frazier's academic appointments include Professor of Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Clinical Professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Steven W. Boyce, MD
Director of Heart Transplantation and Cardiac Assist Device Programmes, Washington Hospital Cente

Dr Boyce has served as Director of the Cardiac Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Assist Device Programs for the Washington Hospital Center, as well as Director of the Cardiac Surgery Research Program for over ten years. He is certified with the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, and performs approximately 500 adult cardiac surgeries per year.

Dr Boyce has served as principal investigator on a number of FDA pharmaceutical and device investigational protocols. He has worked with a variety of mechanical circulatory support devices, both investigational and commercially available.

Dr Boyce graduated from Johns Hopkins University's undergraduate program and the University of Maryland's medical school program. He completed his residency and chief residency in general surgery at the University of California, San Francisco and then trained at UCLA in cardiothoracic surgery. Dr Boyce has a number of professional affiliations, including the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation, the American College of Surgeons, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the American College of Cardiology, the Heart Failure Society of America, and the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery. He has published and presented on a range of topics on the surgical management of end stage heart failure.

Leslie Miller, MD
Director of Cardiology, Washington Hospital Center
Walters Chair of Cardiology, Georgetown School of Medicine

Dr Miller joined the Washington Hospital Center in 2006. He was previously Professor and Director of the Cardiovascular Division and Director of the Heart Failure/Heart Transplant Program at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Dr Miller has been an investigator in over 80 clinical trials studying the safety and efficacy of therapies for heart failure, cardiac transplantation and ventricular assist devices. He is a Past President of the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Physicians and is currently a Member of the Board of the American Heart Association. He is Founder and Chairman of the Working Group of Transplant Cardiologists and a member of the Cardiac Transplant Research Database Executive Committee. Dr Miller is also a current member on the US Federal Agency Advisory Committees for national coverage policy for the use of left ventricular assist devices and the American Heart Association Committee on Heart Failure/Transplantation. Dr Miller has contributed more than 285 medical papers and serves on the editorial boards and as a reviewer for major cardiovascular journals.

Dr Miller received his medical degree from the University of Missouri School of Medicine. His postgraduate training includes serving as Chief Resident in Medicine at Washington University and Barnes Hospital, Missouri, Cardiology Fellow at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and Senior Resident in Surgery at Boston University. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American College of Chest Physicians and the American Heart Association Council on Clinical Cardiology.

Stephen Westaby, FRCS, MD, BSc, PhD
Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK

Mr Stephen Westaby is an adult and paediatric cardiac surgeon in Oxford, United Kingdom and performs over 500 such operations per year. His main clinical interests are non transplant surgery of heart failure, surgery of the thoracic aorta and the development of new heart valve prostheses.

Mr Westaby began his medical career at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, University of London, having obtained degrees in biochemistry, medicine and surgery. His PhD thesis was on Bioengineering of Artificial Hearts and he is co-editor of the Journal of Congestive Heart Failure & Circulatory Support. He was awarded a scholarship to the Albert Einstein Medical College in New York City, has trained in general surgery at Cambridge University and took a research fellowship at the University of Alabama.

Mr Westaby was formerly Senior Registrar at Hammersmith, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and Harefield Hospital. In 1986, he was appointed Chief of Cardiac Surgery for the regional Cardiothoracic Centre in Oxford.

In 1996, Mr Westaby in conjunction with colleagues from the Texas Heart Institute, USA, performed the first permanent implants of the Thermo Cardio Systems artificial heart in patients who were not eligible for heart transplantation. Mr Westaby and the Oxford Heart Centre now have an international reputation for their work on mechanical hearts and treatment of heart failure.

Georg M. Wieselthaler, MD
Clinical Director of Mechanical Circulatory Support, University of Vienna, Dept of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Vienna General Hospital

Dr Wieselthaler has extensive experience with numerous ventricular assist device systems. He is the primary surgeon implanting VAD systems and supervising patient care at the University of Vienna and Vienna General Hospital.

Dr Wieselthaler has implanted a range of circulatory assist devices. He was the first to implant the MicroMed DeBakey rotary LVAD and has since supported more than 40 patients with this pump. Dr Wieselthaler conducetd the first ever implant of the HeartWare HVADTM.

Dr Wieselthaler is currently the Secretary General of the International Society of Rotary Blood Pumps.

Laman A. Gray, Jr, MD
Professor of Surgery and Director of the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Louisville School of Medicine

Dr Gray is highly experienced in the fields of cardiac surgery and development of artificial hearts and circulatory support systems. He was an original investigator for the Novacor Ventricular Assist System, he performed the first clinical use of ABIOMED's SupraCor IABP and he implanted the first AbioCor Implantable Replacement Heart.

Dr Gray has been the Director of the University of Louisville School of Medicine's Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery for more than 20 years, is a founding member of the Jewish Hospital Heart and Lung Institute and is currently the Director of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute.

Dr Gray received his Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction in chemistry from Wesleyan University in Middletown. He then received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and completed his training and residencies in general and thoracic surgery at the University of Michigan.

Gerry O'Driscoll, MB, BCh, BAO, DMed, PhD
Professor of Cardiology at University of Notre Dame, Western Australia
Consultant Cardiologist at Royal Perth Hospital

Dr O'Driscoll is Consultant Cardiologist at Royal Perth Hospital and Medical Head of West Australian Advanced Heart Failure & Cardiac Transplant Services. He is also Head of the Cardiovascular Research Group at Royal Perth Hospital and a Board Member of the Heart & Lung Transplant Foundation of Western Australia.

Dr O'Driscoll has worked extensively with a wide range of mechanical circulatory support devices over the past decade. He has experience with the Thoratec, Heartmate, Novacor, Ventrassist, Biomedicus, Abiomed, Jarvik and HeartWare devices.

Dr O'Driscoll serves as a reviewer for several national funding bodies including the National Heart Foundation and National Health and Medical Research Council. He is a member of several national committees in clinical cardiology and a reviewer for a number of international scientific journals, including the American Journal of Cardiology, Lancet, Circulation and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Dr O'Driscoll received his medical degree from the University College Cork in Ireland. He received his DMed from the National University of Ireland and his PhD from the University of Western Australia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Cardiac Society of Australia & New Zealand, the European Society of Cardiology and the American College of Cardiology.