Toshiharu Shinoka, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Surgery (Section of Cardiac Surgery) and of Pediatrics; Director, Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital

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Departments & Organizations

Yale Medical Group

Pediatrics: Adult Congenital Heart Program | Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery

Surgery: Cardiac Surgery | Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery

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Biography

As a pediatric cardiovascular surgeon, I am interested in the surgical management of congenital heart anomalies. Repair of many congenital heart defects often requires foreign materials to establish vascular continuity. Prosthetic and bioprosthetic materials currently in use lack growth potential and therefore must be repeatedly replaced in pediatric patients as they grow. Tissue engineering (TE) is a new discipline that offers the potential for creating replacement structures from autologous cells and biodegradable polymer scaffolds. In May 2000 we initiated clinical application of tissue-engineered vascular grafts seeded with cultured cells at Tokyo Women’s Medical University. As living tissues, these vascular structures may have the potential for growth, repair and remodeling. The TE approach may provide an important alternative to the use of prosthetic materials in the field of pediatric cardiovascular surgery. My laboratory was the first to obtain FDA approval for investigating the use of tissue engineered vascular grafts in a clinical setting.