Hold the Date for the 2024 Safar Symposium – Thursday, April 25, 2024 & Friday, April 26 @ WISER

The mission of the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research is to identify and promote ever-improving methods to prevent premature death and reduce associated disability from traumatic brain injury, cardiac arrest and other forms of acute brain injury, in people with “hearts and brains too good to die.”

The mission of the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research is to identify and promote ever-improving methods to prevent premature death and reduce associated disability from traumatic brain injury, cardiac arrest and other forms of acute brain injury, in people with “hearts and brains too good to die.”

The Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine was founded by the late Dr. Peter Safar in 1979, initially as the International Resuscitation Research Center

In recognition of Dr. Safar’s innumerable contributions to the field of resuscitation medicine, it was renamed the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research in 1994.

The Safar Center’s current research programs include Traumatic Brain Injury, Child Abuse, Cardiac Arrest, Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation, Hemorrhagic Shock, Combat Casualty Care, and Rehabilitation of CNS Injury. Center investigators work closely with the depts. of Critical Care Medicine, Surgery, Neurological Surgery, Anesthesiology, Emergency Medicine, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at both the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

In addition to conducting basic research, the Safar Center also provides training to the next generation of resuscitation researchers. The Center is a 20,000 square-feet freestanding research facility that houses the laboratories of scientists and clinician-scientists working across a broad spectrum of fields important to resuscitation medicine.

The Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine was founded by the late Dr. Peter Safar in 1979, initially as the International Resuscitation Research Center

In recognition of Dr. Safar’s innumerable contributions to the field of resuscitation medicine, it was renamed the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research in 1994.

The Safar Center’s current research programs include Traumatic Brain Injury, Child Abuse, Cardiac Arrest, Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation, Hemorrhagic Shock, Combat Casualty Care, and Rehabilitation of CNS Injury. Center investigators work closely with the depts. of Critical Care Medicine, Surgery, Neurological Surgery, Anesthesiology, Emergency Medicine, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at both the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

In addition to conducting basic research, the Safar Center also provides training to the next generation of resuscitation researchers. The Center is a 20,000 square-feet freestanding research facility that houses the laboratories of scientists and clinician-scientists working across a broad spectrum of fields important to resuscitation medicine.

Student Research Day

Student Research Day at the Safar Center, an annual event held in August for summer trainees.

30th Anniversary Celebration

Faculty, staff, alumni, trainees and guests celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Safar Center in 2009.

Physical Medicine and Rehab Research

Trainees from the laboratory of Safar Center Associate Director Dr. Anthony Kline in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. The Safar Center is a multi-departmental research facility focused on translational studies in resuscitation medicine from the field to rehabilitation.

Birth of CPR

Classic photo from 1956 of Dr. Peter Safar in the development of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation component of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Dr. Safar is positioned behind the Anesthesia machine on the left, managing the airway. Dr. Safar is known as the father of modern day resuscitation.

Birth of CPR

Classic photo from 1956 of Dr. Peter Safar in the development of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation component of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Dr. Safar is positioned behind the Anesthesia machine on the left, managing the airway. Dr. Safar is known as the father of modern day resuscitation.

The History of the Safar Center

The Safar Center was initially founded as the International Resuscitation Research Center (IRRC) in 1979 by Dr. Peter Safar. In the late 1950s, Dr. Safar pioneered the development of the ABCs (airway, breathing, circulation) of resuscitation, including the technique of “mouth-to-mouth” resuscitation, and assembled these techniques, together with others, into what is currently known and implemented as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

The study and application of additional steps of advanced and prolonged life support led to the development of the concept of cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation (CPCR).