People In Brief

Peer Portner: The pioneer of the first electrical left ventricular assist device died Feb. 9, from cancer. Peer Portner, a Ph.D. trained in nuclear physics, lead a multidisciplinary team at Stanford University in the 1970s to develop the Novacor LVAD, used in the first bridge-to-transplant procedure in 1984. Portner also founded Novacor Medical, which was acquired by Baxter Healthcare in 1988. WorldHeart acquired the Novacor technology in 2000 and continues to market, on a limited basis, an updated version of the product as a bridge-to-transplant pump, and, in Europe, as a longer-term destination therapy