The SVS Research and Education Committee and the Research Council have made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 Vascular Research Initiatives Conference (VRIC)—a forum for cutting-edge vascular science for more than 30 years—set for May 4 in Chicago.
Because enthusiasm and collaboration are such integral parts of this annual gathering of the vascular surgeon-scientist community, VRIC will not be held as a “virtual” meeting.
“We feel it is in the best interest of our vascular research community to cancel this year’s VRIC entirely and allow everyone to focus on the current crisis,” said Edith Tzeng, MD, Research Council chair, and Luke Brewster, MD, Research and Education Committee chair.
Brewster outlined some of the highlights and initiatives that would have been part of the meeting, many of which organizers plan to carry over to the 2021 conference. “The work submitted by SVS investigators was truly excellent,” he said.
The body of presentations included:
- Bryan Tillman, MD, et al at the University of Pittsburgh: “The perfuse dual chamber stent improves donor organ recovery in a porcine model”
- Alexey Kamenskiy, PhD, Jason MacTaggart, MD, et al at the University of Nebraska: “Endovascular repair of blunt thoracic aortic trauma is associated with increased left ventricular mass, hypertension and off-target aortic remodeling”
