He received his MD from the
University of Paris in 1966 and his PhD from the same university in 1975. A
professor emeritus at
Pierre and Marie Curie University, in the 1980s Carpentier published a landmark paper on mitral valve repair entitled
The French Correction. A visiting professor at
Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, he currently heads the Department of
Cardiovascular Surgery at the
Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou in Paris. In 1986, he and
Gilles Dreyfus performed the first
artificial heart implant in Europe. Carpentier is a member of the
French Academy of Sciences and sits on the
Board of Directors of the
World Heart Foundation. The recipient of numerous awards, including the 1996
Prix mondial Cino Del Duca, in 2005 the
American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) bestowed its
Medallion for Scientific Achievement for only the fifth time in its history. In announcing Carpentier as the recipient, the AATS also noted that he is "one of the foremost medical
philanthropists in the world, having established a premier cardiac center in Vietnam a decade ago where over 1,000 open-heart cases are now performed annually. In addition, he has founded cardiac surgery programs in 17 French-speaking countries in Africa." In October 2001, he received an Honorary Doctor of Medicine and Surgery degree from
University of Pavia. In 2006, Carpentier received considerable media attention in the United States as the surgeon who performed an emergency mitral valve repair procedure on
Charlie Rose when the
PBS television interviewer fell ill while en route to
Damascus to interview Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad. In 1989, Carpentier pioneered work to use the patient's own
skeletal muscle (the latimissus dorsi muscle) to repair the failing myocardium, a procedure known as
cardiomyoplasty, which has since advanced into the exciting realms of tissue engineering science. In 2008, Carpentier announced a fully implantable
artificial heart will be ready for clinical trial by 2011, and for alternative to transplant in 2013. It was developed and will be manufactured by him, Biomedical firm Carmat, and venture capital firm
Truffle. The prototype uses electronic sensors and is made from chemically treated animal tissues, called "biomaterials," or a "pseudo-skin" of biosynthetic, microporous materials, amid another US team's prototype called 2005 MagScrew Total Artificial Heart, and Japan and South Korea researchers are racing to produce similar projects. The first clinical trial are under process since 2013. From 2009 to 2012, Carpentier was vice-president and then president of the
French Academy of Sciences. ==Publications==