A Material Science Revolution in Medtech

46. Alois Langer (1945-)
Another coinventor of ICD, Alois A. Langer has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on cardiac rhythm management devices. He also served as the chief biomedical engineer at MedRad in the 1970s. He also has helped developed the HEARTrac I cardiac monitoring system.

47. Robert Langer (1948-)
Robert Langer (pictured) has nearly single-handedly introduced chemical engineering into the life sciences. The most cited engineer in history, Langer currently heads the David H. Koch Institute at MIT. He is a pioneer in the application of chemical engineering to medicine. He has has 1020 patents (509 issued) globally. The patents have been licensed or sublicensed by more than 250 medical technology companies, including many medical device firms. His inventions have been used by some 2 billion people.

48. Gary K. Michelson (1949-)
The prolific inventor Michelson has created orthopedic devices that have been used in hundreds of thousands of patients. Michelson holds more than 250 U.S. patents.

49. Dean Kamen (1951-)
Perhaps most famous for inventing the Segway, Dean Kamen was a pioneer in the development of the portable infusion pump for diabetics and the Luke prosthetic arm, which enables users to interact with objects using thought alone.

50. Mir Imran (1956-)
Mir Imran is perhaps best known for his pioneering contributions to the creation of the first automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator. An electrical engineer by training, he presently holds more than 200 issued patents and has founded 20 life science companies, 15 of which have gone IPO or been acquired. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the Silicon Valley-based research lab and business incubator InCube Labs.

Continue to the Next Feature >>
Top Medical Devices of All Time

Create your own user feedback survey