Brian Y. Chang

About Brian Y. Chang

Born in Johnson City, New York, Brian Y. Chang is the son of immigrants from the Shanghai municipality and Shandong Province in China. Brian’s father completed his graduate studies in engineering and his mother continued her medical training when they came to the United States. As the family moved several times across the country, Brian grew up surrounded by his parents’ love of learning.

Wandering through his father’s workshops at a young age sparked an early fascination with invention, leading Brian to pursue undergraduate and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He completed both degrees in four years, graduating with honors. After college, Brian worked at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, designing carbon-capture and fuel cell technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He later completed a PhD in medical engineering at MIT. Under the mentorship of Elazer Edelman, Brian developed methods that make advanced cardiac technologies more accessible. The resulting approaches are used in hospitals around the world. Brian has authored nearly two dozen peer-reviewed articles and is a named inventor on multiple issued patents.

Seeing his graduate work reach the clinic, Brian recognized the power of engineering to improve patient care and committed himself to expanding access to advanced medical care. Toward that goal, he co-founded X-COR Therapeutics, a medical device startup developing a more accessible extracorporeal support system for patients with lung failure caused by conditions such as severe COVID-19 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

After caring for patients in the hospital and teaching cardiovascular pathophysiology to medical students, Brian chose to train as a physician. He earned his MD in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology and completed internal medicine residency in the Physician-Scientist Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, matching into cardiology fellowship at Stanford before turning to medical device innovation at scale.

Today, Brian works to translate advances in medicine and engineering into globally accessible medical technologies. As Chief Medical Innovation Officer of MicroPort, a publicly listed global medical technology company, he leads medical affairs and innovation across the company’s worldwide device portfolios, working to bring advanced therapies to more patients. He also builds and advises early-stage medical technology companies, including InFlo Medical, which is developing a portable system for extracorporeal life support, and Pathline, an independent investment and development platform for medical technologies.

Across these roles, Brian remains committed to advancing health care through medical device innovation and education as a physician-executive, entrepreneur, and educator. He is deeply grateful for his parents’ sacrifices and his mentors’ generous support.