Prof. Jacob Lavee – Director, the Heart Transplantation Unit and Deputy Director of the Department of
Cardiac Surgery at the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel. Associate Professor of Surgery at the Tel
Aviv University Sackler Faculty of Medicine Trained in Cardiothoracic surgery at the Sheba Medical Center.
In 1989-1990 joined the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center as Clinical Heart and Lung transplantation
fellow; Won a Fellowship Award of the American Society of Artificial Internal Organs; In 1991 founded the
Heart Transplantation Unit at the Sheba Medical Center, which became Israel’s largest unit of its kind.
In 1997 implanted the first left ventricular assist device (LVAD) in Israel and since then became an
international authority in the management of terminally ill heart failure patients.
In July 2000 has performed the world’s first in man implant of the HeartMate II LVAD.
Previous Chairman of the Israel Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery (1999- 2004) and President of the Israel
Transplantation Society (2008-2010)