Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at Bio-T, Israel
Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at Bio-T, Israel
Professor Rafael Beyar received his MD from Tel Aviv University (1977), his DSc from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Technion (1983), and his MPH from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University (2008).
Throughout his career, Beyar’s research focus has been on combining engineering concepts with tools to simulate, understand, and analyze the cardiovascular system; to take the knowledge gained and turn it into innovative tools for cardiovascular medicine; and to then bring those tools into clinical practice for the benefit of humankind.
Co-founder of the Technion’s Heart System Research Center together with Professor Samuel Sideman (1983), Beyar served as Coordinator and Director there. After completing his medical residency at Rambam Medical Center (1983-1985) and a cardiology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University (1985-1987), he spent a year as Visiting Scientist in Calgary (1991), after which he served as Director of Interventional Cardiology at Rambam (1996-2005), and was appointed Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at the Technion (1996).
Soon after his professorial appointment, Beyar was appointed Dean of the Technion’s Ruth & Buce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine (1999-2005). He founded the Johns Hopkins-Technion collaboration program on the Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, which was launched on September 11, 2001. For that and his worldwide standing, Beyar was awarded the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars Medal in 2004. Under his leadership, Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in October, 2004.
Beyar has authored over 250 scientific publications, 15 books, and has numerous patents to his credit. He developed the world’s first robotic catheterization system, which is now FDA approved and in use. He has led a series of prestigious international meetings on cardiovascular modeling, imaging, and analysis. He also co-founded and leads the prestigious annual Innovations in Cardiovascular Interventions (ICI) meetings.
Beyar was appointed the Director of Rambam in 2006. Soon after that he successfully led the hospital staff throughout the second Lebanon war, while the hospital was under fire, and paved the way for construction of the Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital—the largest facility of its kind in the world. Since then he has taken the hospital through a massive development plan with a vision that emphasizes the intertwining of superb medical care with education, research, and innovation.
His most recent achievement has been establishment of the technology transfer company, Rambam MedTech, and winning Israel’s tender for the 2015 Incubator Program on Digital Health (Rambam, Medtronic’s, IBM and VC Pitango) launched in early 2016.