Dr Arush Kalra

Dr. Arush Kalra is Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of PECA Labs and Adjunct Faculty in Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, where his work sits at the interface of contemporary cardiovascular surgical practices, polymer materials science and congenital and structural cardiac device design.

He is co-inventor of exGraft®, an expandable, radiopaque ePTFE vascular conduit engineered to accommodate somatic growth via staged balloon expansion, thereby reducing the reoperative burden intrinsic to fixed-diameter grafts in pediatric patients. The device, FDA-cleared and CE-marked, has been implanted in over 6,000 patients internationally, with supporting data presented at several conferences across the globe.

He is also co-inventor of a ePTFE valve developed for right ventricular outflow tract reconstruction, currently under FDA Investigational Device Exemption with successful early clinical implantation, for which he contributed to both the device architecture and the implantation protocol.

His current investigative focus is a novel polymeric leaflet substrate for a next-generation mitral valve, developed to achieve ultra-low thrombogenicity and biomimetic leaflet kinematics—properties intended to reconcile the durability profile of mechanical prostheses with the hemodynamic and thromboresistant advantages of biologic tissue, currently advancing through chronic ovine study toward IDE submission.

He holds multiple U.S. patents in cardiovascular device design alongside peer-reviewed and conference contributions in the field.