A member of the faculty at Cornell Weill Medical School, one of the nation’s best known thoracic surgeons, and a successful serial entrepreneur, Jeff has also pioneered medical technologies and founded multiple entrepreneurial ventures. He has a unique ability to address complex problems both from an on-the-ground clinical perspective and the bird’s eye view of an innovator.
Jeff has taken on a leadership role in developing the robotic surgical program at Cornell. He has also developed an interest in minimally invasive approaches to the diagnosis, staging, and treatment of thoracic malignancies. He has recently integrated Endobronchial Ultrasound (EBUS) and Electromagnetic Navigational Bronchoscopy (ENB) into the thoracic surgical program. These techniques offer a minimally invasive approach to lung cancer diagnosis and staging.
While teaching and practicing surgery fulltime, Jeff has founded and chaired two companies: Angiocrine Bioscience, which creates cellular therapies designed to drive stem cell renewal in a variety of diseases, and RF Surgical Systems, which introduced the use of innovative micro-RFID chips in surgical applications to eliminate the dangerous problem of surgical material being left behind in patients post closure. The RF Surgical technology has become the standard of care at hospitals worldwide. The company was purchased by Medtronic in 2015 for $235 million.
“Human eggs and embryos are the most precious, delicate cells used in medicine. IVF patients and their doctors want and deserve the most advanced, sophisticated care possible for these irreplaceable cells. That’s what TMRW offers and why I feel so strongly about our work. Through the innovative use of RFID and other advanced technologies, TMRW assures that millions of people worldwide can feel confident about the care and management of the eggs and embryos at the heart of every IVF procedure. As a physician, entrepreneur, and a father, developing the technology to bring these unprecedented new levels of safety and assurance to IVF has been indescribably gratifying.”
