Elliot L. Chaikof, M.D., Ph.D., is Chair of the Department of Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Johnson and Johnson Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chaikof is a member of Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering of Harvard University, the Broad Institute and holds a faculty appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology where he serves as the primary thesis advisor for PhD and MD-PhD students in the Medical Engineering and Medical Physics program. Dr. Chaikof is a member of the Executive Leadership Committee for the Harvard Medical School MD-PhD Program.

Dr. Chaikof received his B.A. and M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed his training in General Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital and in Vascular Surgery at Emory University, and served on the faculty at Emory University for 20 years following the completion of his training, the last 10 of which he served as the John E. Skandalakis Professor and Chief of Vascular Surgery.

Dr. Chaikof’s clinical interests focus on the surgical treatment of vascular disease. He has been involved in clinical trials of tissue engineered products, gene therapy, new biologics, small molecule drugs, and a variety of medical devices. In 1994, he initiated one of the first programs for endovascular aortic aneurysm repair in the United States and was among the core group of principal investigators that conducted the first FDA approved clinical trials of stent-grafts for repair of abdominal and thoracic aortic aneurysms. Dr. Chaikof was responsible for the formulation of clinical trial reporting standards for evaluating the performance of stent-grafts for the treatment of aortic aneurysms, which continues to provide regulatory guidance to the medical device industry, investigators, and the FDA. Dr. Chaikof has also been responsible for the development of national ‘best practice’ guidelines that have established the standards of care for patients with an aortic aneurysm. Dr. Chaikof is Editor of one of the leading textbook in the field, the Atlas of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy, published by Elsevier, with translations in Chinese and Portuguese - and featured on ABC’s ‘The Good Doctor’ (Season 1, Episode 16, March 12, 2018).

Dr. Chaikof’s basic research interests lie at the interface of medicine, chemistry, and engineering. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and more than two dozen pending and issued patents. He was the recipient of the 2013 Clemson Award for Applied Research from the Society for Biomaterials and the 2019 Flance-Karl Award for seminal contributions in basic and translational research from the American Surgical Association. Dr. Chaikof was a principal scientific co-founder of Silicon Therapeutics, which was acquired by Roivant Sciences and now referred to as Roivant Discovery, as a transformative platform to advance the technology of drug discovery. Dr. Chaikof recently served as Chair of Section 1 (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Computational/Information Sciences, and Engineering Sciences) and founding Co-Chair of the Health and Technology Interest Group of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). He also served on the Committee on Emerging Science, Technology, and Innovation of the NAM. Dr. Chaikof is currently a member of the National Materials and Manufacturing Board, the Standing Committee of Biotechnology and National Security Needs, and co-chairs the Roundtable on Biomedical Engineering Materials and Applications (BEMA) for the National Academies, which serves as forums for providing objective and independent technical and policy assessments to the nation. Dr. Chaikof has served on multiple classified panels for the National Academy Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences and the Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board (ARLTAB). Dr. Chaikof was the recipient of the Harvard Medical School Class of 2020 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award. The BIDMC Department of Surgery was recognized with the 2020 Culture of Excellence in Mentoring Award and the 2021 Harold Amos Faculty Diversity Group Award, both from Harvard Medical School.