Adrian Kantrowitz (October 4, 1918 – November 14, 2008) was an
American cardiac surgeon whose team,Bjørnstad PG, Lindberg HL, Smevik B, Rian R, Sørland SJ, Tjønneland S, performed the world's first pediatric heart transplant at
Maimonides Medical Center in
Brooklyn on December 6, 1967. It was only the second time that a human heart had been transplanted into another human being, taking place just three days after
Christiaan Barnard's seminal attempt in
South Africa made headlines around the world and ushered in a new era in clinical organ transplantation. Kantrowitz also invented the
intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP), a
left ventricular assist device (L-VAD), and an early version of the implantable pacemaker.