Affiliation: Vanderbilt University, Department of Cardiac Surgery& Department of Biomedical Engineering

Rei Ukita PhD is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Cardiac Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He holds Sc.B. in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. During his PhD, he worked in Professor Keith Cook’s laboratory to evaluate the efficacy of polycarboxybetaine zwitterionic polymer coatings for reducing blood clots inside artificial lungs, including rabbit and sheep animal models of extracorporeal circulation. Dr. Ukita’s doctoral research, in collaboration with Professor Shaoyi Jiang, won awards from The Society for Biomaterials, and was published in Acta Biomaterialia. For his postdoctoral research, he moved to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to join the Laboratory for Organ Regeneration, Recovery, and Replacement (LOR3) headed by Dr. Matthew Bacchetta. There, he developed and established the large animal sheep model of pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure. Dr. Ukita has used this sheep model to develop and evaluate a wearable device platform to prevent right heart failure and ameliorate exercise intolerance in pulmonary hypertension patients. Currently, he serves as one of the Co-Directors for this lab. He continues to focus his research on innovations in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), including methods of automating the device function to enable real-time physiologic support.