Alain Cribier MD, MD, FACC, FESC

Prof. Alain Cribier, MD, has been for 20 years the Chief of Cardiology at Hospital Charles Nicolle, University of Rouen, France. He is since 2011 Professor Emeritus and Consultant at this University. He graduated from the University of Paris. After a fellowship at Cedars-Sinaï Medical Center in Los Angeles, he joined the Department of Cardiology at Charles Nicolle Hospital in Rouen in 1977 and became Director of the Department.

He became widely recognized for having performed the first balloon dilatation of the aortic valve for the treatment of calcific aortic stenosis in 1985 and then conceived and developed after 10 years of research, the technique of transcatheter implantation of aortic valves (TAVI), performing the first-ever TAVI case in Rouen in 2002. This last innovative technology (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation: TAVI) has opened a revolutionary less invasive way of treating aortic stenosis in patients at high risk for conventional surgery. Disruptive technology is today recognized by the whole medical community as a breakthrough with a durable impact on the pattern of medical practice. More than 150 000 patients have been treated worldwide, and TAVI has been approved by the FDA in the USA since 2011.