Professor John Pepper OBE,MA, MChir, FRCS, FESC

John Pepper was educated at Clare College, Cambridge and Guy’s Hospital qualifying in 1971. He was a research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, USA and in 1980 was appointed consultant cardiothoracic surgeon to the London Chest Hospital. In 1982 he was appointed consultant cardiothoracic surgeon to St. George’s HospitaI where he set up a cardiac transplant programme in 1986. In 1990 he was invited to join Magdi Yacoub at Brompton and Harefield hospitals. He worked within the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust from 1990 and until June 2010 was an active first operator with a busy adult cardiac surgical practice consisting of complex aortic valve and aortic disease in particular. In addition, he has been productive in clinical research, involved in or initiating ten randomised trials all of which were published in high impact journals. With a team of engineers and radiologists, he developed a new prophylactic procedure for the Marfan syndrome which won a prize at the Royal Society in 2012. He has served on several trial steering committees (TSC) and drug safety committees and have chaired two TSCs. He has been a member of the Council of the European Association of Cardio-thoracic Surgeons (EACTS), chair of the Acquired Cardiac Surgery Domain and Director of the EACTS Academy which provides postgraduate courses on a rolling, annual basis in the headquarters at Windsor. He recently retired from being Director of Clinical Research at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS F Trust and a position at Imperial College London.