Meet Dr. James Antaki

Dr. Antaki’s professional career has been devoted to the development of medical devices. His specialty has been in the field of circulatory support, but over the past 32+ years, he has pursued diverse topics, including interventional and diagnostic devices. In 1987, Antaki had his first involvement with breast biomechanics while working in the surgical research facility at the University of Pittsburgh. He collaborated with two plastic/reconstructive surgeons who were studying capsular contracture. They engaged his help to develop a device to mechanically palpate a silicone breast implant to measure its mechanical properties. This work led to his first peer-reviewed publication in J Plastic Recon Surgery in 1989. Over the ensuing 25 years, Dr. Antaki has been involved in the development of a variety of medical devices, working at the crossroads of academia and industry. He advised over 40 Ph.D. and Masters students and published over 195 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. For the past 11 years, as Instructor to the capstone design course in Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Antaki has worked with students and medical professionals on over 100 different biomedical design projects. During the early part of his career, he contributed to the development of several heart-assist devices used clinically, including the Heartmate-II, Novacor, Ventracor, TandemHeart, and Levacor. In 2014, having completed several very large and complicated medical device projects he has returned his attention to biomechanics of the breast.