{"id":900984,"date":"2025-10-28T08:05:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marketnewsdesk.com\/index.php\/in-memoriam-dr-robert-hawes-bartlett-1939-2025-father-of-extracorporeal-membrane-oxygenation-ecmo-and-former-cytosorbents-chief-medical-officer\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T08:05:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:05:06","slug":"in-memoriam-dr-robert-hawes-bartlett-1939-2025-father-of-extracorporeal-membrane-oxygenation-ecmo-and-former-cytosorbents-chief-medical-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marketnewsdesk.com\/index.php\/in-memoriam-dr-robert-hawes-bartlett-1939-2025-father-of-extracorporeal-membrane-oxygenation-ecmo-and-former-cytosorbents-chief-medical-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam: Dr. Robert Hawes Bartlett (1939-2025) – Father of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) and Former CytoSorbents Chief Medical Officer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

PR Newswire<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\n
\n PRINCETON, N.J.<\/span>
\n <\/span>, Oct. 28, 2025<\/span><\/span> \/PRNewswire\/ — CytoSorbents Corporation<\/a><\/u> (NASDAQ: CTSO), a leader in the treatment of life-threatening conditions in the intensive care unit and cardiac surgery using blood purification, honors the life and legacy of Dr. Robert Hawes Bartlett<\/span>, MD (1939-2025), the company’s former Chief Medical Officer from 2008-2017, who passed away last week at age 86.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n \"Dr.
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Dr. Bartlett, a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon and Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan<\/span>, was a visionary pioneer and one of the most influential figures in critical care medicine. He was widely recognized as the father of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) – a life-saving technology that temporarily replaces heart and lung function in patients with severe but reversible organ failure.\u00a0 Over the past half century, ECMO has saved more than 100,000 lives worldwide and is a mainstay of advanced critical care medicine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Phillip Chan<\/span>, Chief Executive Officer of CytoSorbents, stated, “We are deeply grateful to Dr. Bartlett for his many years of leadership, guidance, and support at CytoSorbents.\u00a0 He was instrumental in our randomized, controlled European Sepsis Trial, which supported our initial European Union CE mark approval of CytoSorb\u00ae.\u00a0 He also helped to shape our critical care strategy, laying the foundation for CytoSorb to become the leading blood purification platform it is today. \u00a0Dr. Bartlett also helped to design and lead our U.S. REFRESH-1 randomized controlled trial, which demonstrated the safety of intraoperative CytoSorb use in cardiothoracic surgery.\u00a0 This work helped expand the international use of our technology in open-heart surgery, including to reduce the severity of perioperative bleeding in patients on blood thinners \u2013 an essential part of our U.S. and Canadian regulatory strategy for DrugSorb\u2122-ATR.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Chan continued, “Perhaps Dr. Bartlett’s most visionary contribution was his early recognition of how CytoSorb could be combined with ECMO to treat severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and achieve ‘Enhanced Lung Rest’.\u00a0 ARDS afflicts hundreds of thousands to over a million patients worldwide each year, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, contributed to nearly 900,000 deaths in the U.S. alone.\u00a0 ECMO oxygenates blood outside the body, removing the burden of gas exchange from the lungs and reducing mechanical ventilation-induced lung injury – allowing the lungs to rest.\u00a0 However, ECMO alone does not remove the inflammatory cytokines and toxins that cause capillary leak and drive ongoing lung damage \u2013 the central problem in severe ARDS.\u00a0 But CytoSorb does.”<\/p>\n

“Under FDA Emergency Use Authorization granted in April 2020<\/span>, CytoSorb was used throughout the pandemic to treat cytokine storm and severe inflammation in critically ill U.S. adult COVID-19 patients with imminent or confirmed respiratory failure.\u00a0 Working closely with Dr. Bartlett, we implemented the early use of CytoSorb with ECMO to achieve ‘Enhanced Lung Rest’ in COVID-19 patients who could not survive on mechanical ventilation alone – with remarkable success<\/a>. \u00a0Historically, ECMO has been used as a salvage ‘rescue’ therapy for patients with severe ARDS who fail mechanical ventilation.\u00a0 We share Dr. Bartlett’s vision where early intervention with CytoSorb and ECMO could become the primary treatment of severe ARDS in the future \u2013 a concept that may represent yet another major advance in his enduring legacy.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Chan concluded, “For those who knew him, Bob was deeply beloved and a true inspiration.\u00a0 Despite his many accomplishments and accolades, it would be hard to find someone more knowledgeable yet so humble, approachable, generous, and unfailingly optimistic.\u00a0 His passion for innovation and his steadfast commitment to helping patients were contagious.\u00a0 Beyond his pioneering work in ECLS and ECMO, Bob’s legacy endures in the countless patients whose lives were saved because of him, and in the thousands of\u00a0students, residents, fellows, physicians, and researchers he mentored and inspired over the years.\u00a0 I am privileged to count myself as one of them and will always be grateful to have known such a remarkable man.”<\/p>\n

Mr. Vincent Capponi<\/span>, President and Chief Operating Officer of CytoSorbents stated, “I had the great pleasure and honor of working with Dr. Bartlett for more than a decade at CytoSorbents.\u00a0 With his extraordinary clinical insight and expertise in critical care, we designed and conducted the first clinical trial of CytoSorb in patients with sepsis and ARDS \u2013 work that ultimately led to our European approval as a first-in-class extracorporeal cytokine adsorber.\u00a0 Our long collaboration was driven by a shared passion for innovation and a desire to harness CytoSorb’s potential to control the overwhelming and life-threatening inflammation at the core of so many life-threatening critical illnesses.\u00a0 Dr. Bartlett was a man of conviction, compassion, and unwavering dedication, always placing the well-being of his patients above all else.\u00a0 Bob, we thank you for all of your outstanding contributions to CytoSorbents and mankind over the years.\u00a0 You will be deeply missed.”<\/p>\n

To learn more about Dr. Robert Bartlett’s<\/span> profound impact on medicine and humanity: \u00a0<\/p>\n