Dr. Irving Itzkan

Dr. Irving Itzkan, a biomedical physicist of Boston, Massachusetts, died on June 30, 2022. Dr. Itzkan is survived by his beloved wife, Annette Itzkan, his two sons, Harry Simon and his wife Debra, Seth Itzkan, and his nieces and nephews, Philip, Billy and Russel Brodsky, David and Peggy Bodwell, and his grandchildren, Michael, Ashlie and Katelyn Quinney. He hails from Brooklyn, New York, where his parents, Sheila and Harry, settled after emigrating from Eastern Europe. He attended Cornell and Columbia Universities and obtained his PhD.in physics from New York University.

Dr. Itzkan had a long and prestigious career bringing therapeutic and diagnostic innovations to doctors and patients around the world. He was Chairman of the Optics Committee at the Avco-Everett Research Lab which designed and developed the first intra-aortic balloon pump, a cardiac assist device which has been used on millions of people. In the Spectroscopy Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT), he contributed to the development of instruments and techniques for using fiber-optic probes in the body to recognize pre-cancerous cells in real time, greatly increasing the rapidity and ease of such potentially life saving diagnoses. In addition to Avco and MIT, his affiliations as a researcher or instructor included Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital, and Sperry Labs.

Dr. Itzkan was an officer  in the US Navy, a board member of Community Boating Incorporated in Boston, and a lifetime contributor to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Above all else was was love for his family, sailing, NYT crossword puzzles, Jeopardy, and a good joke. Sail on dear Irving, and keep coming up with those Jeopardy answers. We love and miss you.