Tufts University: 175 Years of Innovation

In 1948 one of the first functioning heart pumps in history was invented by Sigmund Adam Wesolowski (known later as Adam Wesolow), M48 G51, and James A. E. Halkett. Building upon his M.I.T. thesis entitled “An Artificial Heart,” Halkett and his colleague Bill Sewell developed an extracorporeal mechanical heart, which in 1948 became the first mechanical heart to successfully bypass the left side of a cat’s heart. Wesolowski joined the project when it moved to Tufts in 1950, where the team modified the cardiac pump to increase the long-term survival of animals after bypass surgery.