Jack Copeland (surgeon)

Jack Greene Copeland (born 1942) is an American cardiothoracic surgeon, who has established procedures in heart transplantation including repeat heart transplantation, the implantation of total artificial hearts (TAH) to bridge the time to heart transplant, innovations in left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) and the technique of "piggybacking" a second heart (heterotopic heart transplant) in a person, while leaving them the original.

In 1985, he performed the first successful implant of the Jarvik 7 artificial heart for the purpose of gaining time until a suitable heart donor could be found. The 25-year-old recipient received the heart transplant within two weeks of the implant and survived more than five years.

Copeland co-founded SynCardia Systems and after being head of the cardiothoracic surgery programme at the University of Arizona Medical Center (UAMC) in Tucson for over thirty years, he moved to the University of California, San Diego in 2010.

He was one of the first presidents of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT), a society he helped co-found and who awarded him its Past Pioneer Award in 2013.