A $1 million gift from William O'Neill, MD, will fuel research at Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System's Heart & Vascular Institute.
Dr. O'Neill is an interventional cardiologist and director of the health system's center for structural heart disease. In 2005, he performed the first transcatheter aortic valve replacement through a catheter in the U.S. His donation establishes the Carol S. O'Neill Structural Heart Disease Research Fund — an honor to Dr. O'Neill's wife who died in 2019. She was a Henry Ford nurse who researched heart disease, according to a Feb. 17 news release.
The fund will support both new efforts and ongoing studies, including a clinical trial that is exploring ways to conduct tricuspid valve repair without surgery.
A number of new treatment devices and catheter techniques have come out of the health system's structural heart disease center, including a procedure that reduces risks associated with TAVRs.
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