World-leading expert in stroke medicine, Professor Philip Bath has been honoured by the American Stroke Association (ASA) for his research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of stroke and hypertension.

Head of Clinical Neuroscience at The University of Nottingham, Professor Bath has been awarded the William M. Feinberg Award for Excellence in Clinical Stroke at the International Stroke Conference 2016 in Los Angeles.

He is one of nine scientists globally to have their notable contributions to stroke medicine recognised by the Association. Professor Bath presented his latest work on the use of nitric oxide treatments to alleviate stroke progression and effects, including glyceryl trinitrate or ‘nitroglycerin’ in early treatment skin patches.

The Feinberg Award is named after Dr William Feinberg (1952-1997), a prominent stroke clinician-researcher and American Heart Association volunteer who contributed to a fuller understanding of the causes of stroke. The award recognizes a Stroke Council Fellow actively involved in patient-based research who has made significant contributions to clinical stroke research.

Bath is Stroke Association Professor of Stroke and consultant physician in inpatient and outpatient stroke and hypertension at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and is a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) senior investigator. He was associate director (industry and prevention) for the NIHR Stroke Research Network, and chaired the Industry Roundtable of the European Stroke Organization.

His research interests involve the pathophysiology and management of acute blood pressure and haemostasis, which is the process that causes bleeding to cease, in stroke, stroke prevention, stem cell therapy and treatment of post-stroke dysphagia, or swallowing difficulty. He has authored more than 300 publications.

Among the highlights in his career as a researcher and clinical trial leader: He is or was chief investigator of the TAIST (Lancet 2001), ENOS (Lancet 2015), STEPS, PODCAST, TARDIS and RIGHT-2 multicentre randomized controlled trials. He coordinates international collaborations on acute stroke blood pressure management, and on optimizing the design and analysis of trials in acute stroke, stroke prevention and cognition. He also facilitates preclinical studies of stroke interventions.