KANTROWITZ, ADRIAN

KANTROWITZ, ADRIAN (1918– ), U.S. cardiovascular surgeon born in New York City. He graduated as an M.D. from Western Reserve University (1943). After training in cardiovascular physiology, he became director of surgical services at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and professor of surgery at New York State University (1964–70), and chairman of the department of surgery at Sinai Hospital, Detroit (1970). He was also director of the biotechnology company LVAD of Detroit. He was a pioneer in bioengineering relating to the heart and cardiovascular surgery. He devised a plastic heart valve, a heart-lung machine, an internal pacemaker, the first partial mechanical heart implanted in humans, a machine recording blood loss during open heart surgery, devices to aid the failing heart ventricle to pump blood more effectively, and techniques for taking films inside the living heart. He carried out the world's second heart transplant (1967). His bioelectronic techniques have also been used to control bladder function in paraplegics. He won the Max Berg Award (1966). (Michael Denman (2nd ed.)