C. Gregory Elliott Recognized for Decades of PH Patient Care, Research Achievements

Dr. C. Gregory Elliott has won the 2017 American Thoracic Society Public Advisory Roundtable William J. Martin, II Distinguished Achievement Award. This honor recognizes Elliott’s innovative leadership skills, history in public service and passion for his patients.

Elliott, a pioneer member of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA), has made important contributions in advancing pulmonary hypertension (PH) care, scientific education and research.

C. Gregory Elliott

Elliott is medical director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Center at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah. Among other things, he chaired the PHA’s Scientific Advisory Board and has served on its Board of Trustees. Elliott also led Advances in Pulmonary Hypertension, PHA’s medical journal.

“The PHA community values Dr. Elliott’s considerable contributions to PH clinical care and research,” PHA President and CEO Brad A. Wong said in a PHA news release. “In 1994, Dr. Elliott had the idea of opening a research room to patients attending the first PHA International PH Conference and Scientific Sessions. He told us it allowed him the opportunity to draw more blood from PH patients than he would have been able to collect in 10 years — providing data that ultimately contributed to the discovery of the first gene related to PH.”

The PHA, based in Silver Spring, Md., established Elliott’s work as The Research Room, a regular part of PHA’s International Conference. During last year’s conference, around 300 patients and their family members contributed to 10 research projects.

As a professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine, Elliot began treating patients with rare diseases over 20 years ago. After discovering that vasodilators were useless to treat patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, he decided to devote his research to drugs for PH patients.

Elliott has also supported the Registry to Evaluate Early and Long-term PAH Disease Management (REVEAL Registry). He also spearheaded the National Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Biobank, which stores genetic and patients’ clinical information.

Finally, Elliott led a research project that found genetic mutations linked with pulmonary capillary hemangiomatosis, a rare cause of PH. In addition, he has contributed to other breakthrough studies including the first large-scale registry for PH patients through the National Institutes of Health.