Julio C. Palmaz

Julio C. Palmaz (born 1945) is an Argentine-born physician and inventor who invented the first commercially successful intravascular stent, the Palmaz Stent, starting from a discarded piece of metal he found on the floor of his garage. A stent is an open mesh tube that expands a blood vessel once inserted and holds it open to restore normal blood flow. His stent changed cardiac care, with more than a million people undergoing coronary artery stenting each year to repair clogged arteries, and many bypass operations that once seemed unavoidable can now be avoided. It has had a major effect on the treatment of atherosclerotic arterial disease. Palmaz studied at the National University of La Plata in Argentina, where he earned his medical degree.