University of Kentucky Medical School’s surgical chief working to score a first

LEXINGTON Ky.
The University of Kentucky’s
new surgical chief aims to put UK
on the medical map as a leader in the development of the artificial lung.

In the meantime, he’s never without his harmonica, and he
sits in for a band called Soul Patch.

Dr. Joseph P. “Jay” Zwischenberger, a Kentucky
native, has been working on plans for an artificial lung for 25 years. He
brought the project with him when he came from the University
of Texas to become chairman of
surgery at UK
in May.

He says he hopes to implant one of the devices in a patient
at UK within
about three years, if things go well.

“The exact timing would depend on the FDA,”
Zwischenberger said. “Given length of the regulatory process, the first
patient most likely will be done in Europe or perhaps in
China. But
let’s put it this way: I want the first patient in the United
States to be done here.”

Much has been written about the artificial heart over the
past two decades. Work on the artificial lung has received much less coverage,
although researchers were making attempts to build such devices as early as the
1930s. Now at last they seem to be getting close.