Category: New Faculty

Please join us in welcoming Kentaro Ikeda, DDS, MPH, FDS RCSEd, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Kentaro Ikeda, DDS, MPH, FDS RCSEd
Associate Surgeon, Division of Oral Medicine
Clinical Director, Division of Oral Medicine

Dr. Ikeda received a Doctor of Dental Surgery from the Tokyo Dental College in Japan. He completed an infectious diseases fellowship at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, followed by a special needs pediatric dentistry residency at the Kanagawa Children’s Medical Center in Yokohama, Japan. Dr. Ikeda then completed a general practice residency and an oral medicine residency at the Carolinas Medical Center. He also holds an MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Global Public Health.

Dr. Ikeda is a member of various professional organizations, including the American Academy of Oral Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and the American Dental Association. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Oral Medicine and a fellow of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.  

Before coming to the Brigham, Dr. Ikeda was an assistant professor of diagnostic and biological sciences/oral medicine and family medicine at the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine. At the Brigham, he will also serve as clinical director of the Division of Oral Medicine. In this role, he will lead clinical improvement projects, advise regarding opportunities to promote clinical service, work with clinic managers to ensure adequate scheduling, develop clinic policies and practice guidelines, coordinate division clinical rounds and monitor faculty and staff compliance.

Dr. Ikeda’s clinical and research interests include diagnosis and management of oral mucosal diseases, orofacial pain and oral complications of systemic diseases and their management/treatment.

Please join us in welcoming Akinobu Itoh, MD, PhD, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Akinobu Itoh, MD, PhD
Associate Surgeon, Division of Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery
Surgical Director, Heart Transplantation and Mechanical and Circulatory Support

Dr. Itoh received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the Tohoku University School of Medicine in Sendai, Japan. He completed resident training in general surgery and cardiovascular surgery at the NTT Medical Center in Tokyo and a fellowship in cardiovascular surgery at the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center in Osaka, Japan. Subsequently, he completed a fellowship in cardiovascular surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada and a fellowship in transplant/heart failure at Toronto General Hospital. In 2013, he joined Washington University School of Medicine/Barnes-Jewish Hospital as a faculty member. Dr. Itoh also holds a PhD in cardiac valve physiology and pathology from Tohoku University.

Before coming to the Brigham, Dr. Itoh was an associate professor of surgery, surgical director of the Heart Transplant and Ventricular Assist Device Program and director of the Surgical Heart Failure Fellowship Program at the Washington University School of Medicine, as well as co-director of the Barnes-Jewish ECMO Program. At the Brigham, Dr. Itoh will also be serving as surgical director of Heart Transplantation and Mechanical and Circulatory Support for the Division of Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery.

Dr. Itoh’s main clinical focus is on orthotopic heart transplant and mechanical assist device surgery. He also takes care of high-risk, complex aortic and mitral valve surgeries, as well as aortic dissection and aneurysm. Low ejection fraction coronary artery revascularization surgery, with mechanical circulatory assist is another area of his clinical interest. His clinical and translational research concerns are heart failure and the clinical impact of valvular surgery concomitant with mechanical assist device implantation and reverse remodeling in mechanically unloaded condition. He’s also interested in the clinical outcomes of acute circulatory support, with extracorporeal oxygen membrane circulatory support and other mechanical circulatory support devices, such as the intra-aortic balloon pump and the Impella device. Based upon his previous research experience in valvular/ventricular physiology and transesophageal echocardiography, he would like to contribute to the development of the clinical and translational research in the heart failure field.

Please join us in welcoming Farhad Rikhtegar Nezami, PhD, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Farhad Rikhtegar Nezami, PhD
Lead Investigator, Division of Cardiac Surgery

Dr. Nezami graduated from the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, Iran with a BSc in aerospace engineering, for which he also obtained an MSc from the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Before coming to the Brigham, Dr. Nezami worked at the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center as a research scientist and project leader. At the Brigham, he will leverage his expertise in bioinformatics, computational modeling and vascular biology from a pathophysiologic perspective to achieve clinical impact by using multifaceted systems with complex biological and mechanical interactions. Dr. Nezami’s primary focus is on using computational methods to develop tractable and provably reliable test systems and novel data-driven design and optimization platforms to provide mechanistic understanding of pathologies; asses the efficacy and optimize medical devices; and deliver predictive means, diagnostic tools and surgical guidelines to clinicians.

Dr. Nezami’s research interests thus include computational pathophysiology (biofluid dynamics, biomechanics, mathematical modeling); machine learning to analyze clinical data, diagnostics/prognostics and clinical decision making; deep learning for medical image processing (fusion of modalities, plaque characterization, etc.); data-driven design/optimization of medical devices and interventions; virtual surgery using Al and in silico predictive/prognostic tools; as well as drug delivery, solute transport, pharmacokinetics and optimization.