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NASHVILLE (March 30, 2025)—The Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) presented its highest honor, the SIR Gold Medal, to Yasuaki Arai, MD, FSIR; Michael Brunner, MD, FSIR; and Arina van Breda, MD, during its Annual Scientific Meeting in Nashville. These awards acknowledge distinguished and extraordinary service to SIR or to the specialty of interventional radiology. Following the awards ceremony, Lindsay Machan, MD, FSIR, delivered the 2025 Charles T. Dotter Lecture.

“SIR first met 50 years ago in the spirit of achieving Dr. Charles Dotter’s vision of interventional radiologists evolving from technicians into clinicians. While maintaining Dr. Dotter’s innovative spirit dedicated to tackling complex medical problems, we are now a specialty invested in the longitudinal treatment of our patients. Today’s honorees are the embodiment of that vision, and we are proud to celebrate these colleagues who practiced in the model of teacher, clinician and innovator Charles Dotter,” said SIR 2024–2025 President Robert J. Lewandowski, MD, FSIR.

Meet the Gold Medal recipients

Yasuaki Arai, MD, FSIR, is a world-renowned interventional radiologist who has developed new devices, such as an implantable port system, angio-CT systems and a tip-deflecting microcatheter, and new techniques, such as percutaneous catheter placement for hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy and the transjugular transhepatic peritoneovenous shunt for intractable ascites, among others. He has published more than 200 scientific papers in major journals and is an associate editor of several leading journals, including the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. He has also served as a medical device consultant for Japanese government agencies.

Dr. Arai received his medical degree at Jikei University School of Medicine and trained for 5 years at the Tokyo Medical Center. Later, he worked in the department of diagnostic and interventional radiology at the Aichi Cancer Center and served as chief of the department of diagnostic radiology at the National Cancer Center. He served as the director of the hospital between 2012–2016, and as the president of Japanese Society of Interventional Radiology from 2014–2017. He also organized the Japan Interventional Radiology in Oncology Study Group in 2003, which has conducted over 30 clinical studies in the field of IR to pursue evidence.

After retiring from the National Cancer Center in 2018, he has been actively working as a guest researcher at the National Cancer Center, a guest professor at Tokyo Jikei University School of Medicine and Saitama Medical University, a clinical professor at St. Marianna University of Medicine, and a chief doctor at Uonuma City Koide Hospital.

Michael C. Brunner, MD, FSIR, has held leadership roles in medical practice, professional societies and biotechnology. He is a former president of the Society of Interventional Radiology, board chair of the Society of Interventional Oncology (then World Congress of Interventional Oncology) and chair of the American Medical Association House of Delegates Radiology Section Council. In addition to consulting for global startups in HealthTech, MedTech and Biotech, recently Dr. Brunner joined Delcath Systems as their senior VP of interventional oncology.

Dr. Brunner’s clinical career has spanned private practice and academics within community, state and federal institutions. Academics included teaching at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s and at the University of Wisconsin Madison where he became a clinical professor in interventional radiology. Heading radiology at William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans’ Hospital, he led a 60-person department and $5 million budget while overseeing a portfolio of federal and industry-funded research grants. He also held regional and national leadership roles within the Veterans Health Administration. Subsequently, Dr. Brunner served as vice president of clinical practice and innovative technologies at ProKidney. There he evaluated and trained study proceduralists, established innovative trial partnerships, and supported pharmacovigilance and early commercialization strategies.

Dr. Brunner received his medical degree from Stanford University and trained in diagnostic and interventional radiology at Emory. He also trained in general surgery at Northwestern and vascular surgery at Stanford.

Arina van Breda, MD, FSIR, the first female president of SIR, helped establish the nation’s first dedicated full-time private practice of interventional radiology in the United States and led a respected fellowship training program for future IRs.

Born in the Netherlands, she immigrated to the United States as a child. She interned in internal medicine at George Washington University Hospital and completed her radiology residency there, serving as chief resident in her final year. During her residency, she developed an intense interest in IR. Working closely with Barry T. Katzen, MD, FSIR, who was then working at Alexandria Hospital in Northern Virginia, they published several journal articles establishing thrombolytic therapy as a useful tool for vascular procedures. Dr. Van Breda completed a 2-year fellowship in cardiovascular radiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and then served an additional time as staff there and at Harvard University. Dr. Katzen then recruited her back to Alexandria Hospital in 1983 when they established their private practice. When Dr. Katzen moved to Florida a few years later, Dr. Van Breda stayed to develop the practice and its fellowship program with Kenneth S. Rholl, MD, FSIR. Subsequently joined by Keith M. Sterling, MD, FSIR, and others, they continued to serve the IR needs of the Northern Virginia area for more than 30 years.

Dr. Van Breda has lectured throughout the world, teaching IR to several subsequent generations of IRs. She has authored over 50 articles and book chapters in her field and coauthored with Eugene Strandness, MD, a vascular text for both IR and vascular surgeons.

She also earned a masters in medieval history at Catholic University while still in practice. She retired from medicine in 2019 and since that time has devoted herself to volunteer work, registering voters throughout Northern Virginia and advocating for voting rights.

Meet the 2025 Dr. Charles T. Dotter Lecturer

Lindsay Machan MD, FSIR, is an interventional radiologist at Vancouver Hospital and an associate professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is also an associate member of the department of vascular surgery and the division of urology. Dr. Machan began his practice in 1989. In 1991, along with Peter Fry, MD, he established the first collaborative endovascular group in North America. In 1993, he started UBC’s interventional radiology fellowship program. 

During his career, he performed several first-in-human procedures, including fluoroscopically guided prostatic stent, removable metallic urethral stent, paclitaxel-coated stent and paclitaxel-coated vascular stent placements. His first-in-Canada procedures include percutaneous atherectomy (excisional and rotational), uterine fibroid embolization, ovarian vein embolization and aortic stent grafting, among others. In 2006, he and Bill Hunter, MD, shared the Manning Foundation Innovation Award for developing and commercializing the paclitaxel-coated stent. He was the primary investigator on a seminal, sham-controlled, double-blinded crossover study examining the viability of jugular angioplasty as a treatment for multiple sclerosis, which ultimately showed had no benefit over the sham procedure.

He was the coeditor of the 4th, 5th and 6th editions of Kandarpa’s Handbook of Interventional Procedures, the largest selling interventional radiology textbook worldwide. He has given over 700 invited lectures, including 21 keynote or eponymous lectures. In addition to being a researcher, innovator and educator, Dr. Machan is also an entrepreneur, having founded two companies, Angiotech Pharmaceuticals and Ikomed Technologies.

A fellow of the Society of Interventional Radiology since 2000, Dr. Machan was honored with the SIR Foundation Leader in Innovation Award in 2015. He is also a distinguished fellow of the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological society of Europe and an honorary member of the Asia Pacific Society of Interventional Radiology. Dr. Machan is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Interventional Radiology (CAIR) and received CAIR’s Award for Career Achievement in 2020. In 2024, he was made an officer in the Order of Canada.