Elliot L. Chaikof MD, PhD

Elliot L. Chaikof, M.D., Ph.D., is Chairman of the Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner Department of Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), as well as the Johnson and Johnson Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering of Harvard University and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Dr. Chaikof received his B.A. and M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he focused on the design of artificial organs. He completed his training in General Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital and in Vascular Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Dr. Chaikofs basic research interests lie at the interface of medicine and engineering. Leading collaborative research efforts with clinicians, engineers, and biologists, Dr. Chaikof has designed new strategies that have advanced the development of engineered living tissues, implantable devices, and artificial organs, as well as cell-based therapies, which have helped to define the evolving field of Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Chaikof’s laboratory has received more than $25 million in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, as well as support from the American Heart Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He served as the Emory Principle Investigator for a $40 million dollar, 10-year award from the National Science Foundation that funded the Georgia Tech/Emory Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues. Nearly two dozen patents have been issued or filed based on work in his laboratory and have been licensed for improving the care of patients. Dr. Chaikof’s technology has lead to the formation of Cool-Bio, Inc., which is focused on the development of temperature sensitive platelet inhibitors.