James Antaki

Susan K. McAdam Professor of Heart Assist Technology
Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering

Biography

 

The majority of Prof. Antaki’s professional career has been devoted to development of blood-wetted medical devices. His research focuses on the methodology by which these devices are designed and used clinically. His group was one of the pioneers in physiological feedback control of implanted ventricular assist devices, and also developed one of the first decision support programs for identifying heart failure patients who could potentially recover with the acute mechanical circulatory assistance. Over the past 24 years, Antaki has contributed to the development of several heart-assist devices used clinically, including the Heartmate-II, Novacor, Ventracor, TandemHeart, and Levacor. In 1997, he directed a multidisciplinary team that produced the Streamliner heart-assist device – the world’s first magnetically levitated rotodynamic blood pump to be tested in-vivo.

The current emphasis of Prof. Antaki’s research involves five application areas: circulatory support systems for children, decision-support tools for severe heart failure, diagnostic technology for the home and point-of-care to improve patient engagement, multi-scale modeling of thrombosis in artificial circulation, and development of medical devices for global health. A nascent, overarching project aims to accelerate medical innovation by professional networking between physicians, medical product designers, and patients. Although these interests and experiences are diverse, they share a common theme of improving healthcare though biomedical engineering.

Research Interests

Selected Publications

  • Rowlands GW, Pagani FD, Antaki JF. Classification of the Frequency, Severity, and Propagation of Thrombi in the HeartMate II Left Ventricular Assist Device. ASAIO J. 2020;66(9):992–9.
  • Rowlands, GW, JF Antaki, “High-speed visualization of ingested, ejected, adherent, and disintegrated thrombus in contemporary ventricular assist devices. ” Artificial Organs (2020) 44 (11): E459-E469.
  • Movahedi, F., Kormos, R.L., Lohmueller, L., Seese, L., Kanwar, M., Murali, S., Zhang, Y., Padman, R. and Antaki, J.F. “Sequential pattern mining of longitudinal adverse events after Left Ventricular Assist Device implant. ” IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. vol. 24, no. 8, pp. 2347-2358, Aug. 2020.
  • Wu, W.T., Zhussupbekov, M., Aubry, N., Antaki, J.F. and Massoudi, M., 2020. “Simulation of thrombosis in a stenotic microchannel: The effects of vWF-enhanced shear activation of platelets.” International Journal of Engineering Science, 147, p.103206., 17 pages.
  • Kanwar MK, Lohmueller LC, Teuteberg J, Kormos RL, Rogers JG, Benza RL, Lindenfeld J, McIlvennan C, Bailey SH, Murali S, Antaki JF. “Risk Assessment in Patients with a Left Ventricular Assist Device Across INTERMACS Profiles Using Bayesian Analysis.” ASAIO Journal 2019; 65:436–442.

Patents (of total of 29 issued, 6 pending) 

  1. Michael R. Ricci, James F. Antaki, Josiah E. Verkaik, Bradley E. Paden, Shaun T. Snyder, David B. Paden, Jingchun Wu; Magnetically-levitated blood pump with optimization method enabling miniaturization; US10835652B2; Issued 2020-11-17
  2. Blank, M and JF Antaki. Device and method for palpation of tissues for characterization and mechanical differentiation of subcutaneous structures. US10687710B2 issued 6-23-20
  3. Gandini, A and J Antaki, Devices and methods for detection and quantification of immunological proteins. US10495634B2 Issued 2019-12-03
  4. Antaki JF, Pitch Altering Mechanism for Reeded Instrument, US 8802949, Issued, August 12, 2014.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • Steven Fenves Award for Systems Research 2009
  • August H. Koyanagi Young Investigator Award (11th Congress of the International Society for Rotary Blood Pumps) 2003
  • Fellow (American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE)) 2002
  • IEEE Control System Technology Award (shared with BE Paden, UCSB) for development of Streamliner maglev heart assist pump (IEEE) 2001
  • Elected one of Pittsburgh Magazine 40 under 40 the top leaders in Pittsburgh under age 40, (Pittsburgh Magazine) 1999

Education

  • B.S. (Mechanical Engineering), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1985
  • Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering), University of Pittsburgh, 1991