Complex Issues in Coronary Surgery*

Dr Saito studied medicine at Yokohama City University School of Medicine.  During her fourth year at medical school lecture on artificial organ and cardiac transplantation inspired her and she discovered her passion for heart surgery.  After completing her general, thoracic, and cardiac surgery training in Yokohama, she moved to Tokyo and practiced adult cardiac, pediatric cardiac and vascular surgery at the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Medicine. In 2002, she entered to postdoctoral course to earn PhD, and made several basic and clinical investigations on cryopreserved heart-valve and vascular allograft and completed her work. She became a staff surgeon at the University of Tokyo and worked in adult cardiac surgery area in 2006. In the same year she founded Women in Thoracic Surgery (WTS) in Japan with a great support by Women in Thoracic Surgery (USA).  In 2007, she joined the clinical fellowship at Division of Cardiac Surgery and Multi Organ Transplant Unit, London Health Sciences Centre, University of Western Ontario, Canada and spent her passion on clinical & basic practice on cardiac transplantation as well as adult cardiac surgery including minimally invasive and robotic surgery. She came back to the University of Tokyo in 2009 and started as assistant professor at Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and became lecturer in 2011.  In 2014 she moved to Toho University Sakura Medical Center as associate professor at Division of Cardiac Surgery and also director of Division of Medical Engineering. She has been organizing annual meetings for Women in Thoracic Surgery in Japan since 2006, serving herself to promote mentor-mentee relationship among both female and male surgeons across the country.  She serves on several national/international profession organization committees and boards.  Today she serves herself energetically for a full spectrum of adult cardiac surgical care, and also enjoys the privilege of teaching the next generation of cardiac surgeons.

Dr. Todd K. Rosengart is professor and chair of the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He is the DeBakey-Bard Chair of Surgery and is professor of heart and vascular disease at the Texas Heart Institute. He is past president of the Society of Surgical Chairs and a member of the board of directors of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.

Dr. Rosengart continues to run an NIH-funded laboratory with over 20 years of NIH support in the fields of angiogenesis and cellular reprogramming. In 1997, he and his team at Cornell performed the world’s first viral-based cardiac gene transfer procedure, part of a landmark NIH and FDA-approved first-in-man angiogenesis trial for “no option” patients with end stage coronary artery disease. He is PI of a cardiovascular surgery NIH T32 training grant, recipient of $20 million in total research grants, holds thirteen U.S. patents and is author of over 200 peer-reviewed articles and other publications with an h-index of 60.  He has mentored nearly 100 research and cardiac surgery trainees over the past 30 years.

Dr. Rosengart is past chair of the NIH Bioengineering, Technology and Surgical Sciences Study Section, chair of a new American College of Surgeons National Surgeon Scientist Study Section and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Leducq Foundation. He was editor of Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery from 2013 to 2020. Amongst other affiliations, he is a member of the American Surgical Association, the Southern Surgical Society, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Southern Thoracic Surgical Society and the Texas Surgical Society.

Dr. Rosengart is co-founder of Vitals.com (MDx, LLC), a web-based medical consumerism and physician search company and co-founder of XyloCor Therapeutics, a gene therapy company leading an FDA Fast Track designated Phase I/II national trial of angiogenic gene therapy for treating patients with end stage coronary artery disease.