ICHS 2021 Awards
The International Immunocompromised Host Society Awards
The International Immunocompromised Host Society 2021 Awards
The International Immunocompromised Host Society has awarded, for the second time, a Lifetime Achievement award and a Young Investigator award two highly qualified ICHS members. The awards were presented during the closing ceremony of the 21st ICHS Symposium on Friday, 19 February, 2021.
Congratulations to the recipients!
The International Immunocompromised Host Society Lifetime Achievement AwardDr Philip Pizzo, Stanford University, United States, Recipient of the ICHS Lifetime Achievement Award
Throughout that twenty-year period at the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Pizzo made extraordinary advances in the field of infectious disease supportive care in Pediatric Oncology. For example, he was among the first investigators to identify the transition of emerging infections in patients with cancer from Gram-negative to Gram-positive bacterial pathogens. He developed rational evidenced based strategies for antimicrobial interventions based upon the duration of antibiotic therapy in patients with fever and neutropenia. These included demonstration of the benefit of empirical antifungal therapy in patients with persistent fever and neutropenia. These critical observations led to subsequent studies of empirical antifungal therapy that became standards of care in the prevention and early treatment of invasive fungal infections in persistently febrile neutropenic patients. The International Immunocompromised Host Society Junior Investigator AwardDr Mario Fernández Ruiz, University of Madrid, Spain, recipient of the ICHS Junior Investigator Award
He would pursue a research career by obtaining three prestigious research grants in Spain: the Rio Ortega grant in 2012, the Juan Rodes grant in 2015, and in 2019, the Miguel Servet post-doctoral contract from the lnstituto de Salud Carlos Ill of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. He also had the opportunity to complete his training as both clinician and clinical research scientist in one of the most world-renown centers in Transplant Infectious Diseases, the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, with Prof. Atul Humar, as well as a 6-month research fellowship at Lausanne University Hospital in 2018. The main research interest of Dr Fernandez-Ruiz is the identification of the individual risk of infection by the assessment of novel biomarkers in the transplant population. In particular, he confirmed in several publications the role of hypogammaglobulinemia, lymphocyte subpopulations (including NK cells) and complement levels as robust markers for infection in this population. Overall, Dr Mario Fernandez-Ruiz is a talented, motivated, and enthusiastic clinician with a profound knowledge in clinical infectious diseases and in methodology of clinical research. Last, he has an open and easy personality, for which he is seen in great esteem by his pairs. He is undeniably recognized as one of the most promising transplant infectious diseases clinicians and scientists in Spain, and internationally. |
During the past four decades, Dr. Pizzo has distinguished himself as an internationally renowned leader in the field of infectious diseases support of care in Pediatric and Adult Oncology as well as a pioneer in the field of Pediatric HIV/AIDS. Having joined the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute in 1976, Dr. Pizzo rose to become Senior Investigator and Head of the Infectious Diseases Section, and finally to become Chief of Pediatrics of the National Cancer Institute. 
Dr Fernandez-Ruiz obtained his medical degree at the University of Madrid, Spain in 2004. He started then the residency in internal medicine at the University Hospital of 12 de Octubre, also in Madrid, followed by a fellowship in infectious diseases in the immunocompromised host, under the supervision of Prof. Jose M. Aguado. Dr Fernandez-Ruiz showed early during his training a particular interest in clinical research.
| International Immunocompromised Host SocietyICHS Executive Director | Beth Kassalen | admin@ichs.org |