Robert Fischell

Robert Fischell, born on 10 February 1929, is a physicist and prolific inventor who holds more than 200 United States and foreign medical patents, and whose inventions have led to the creation of several biotechnology companies. He took a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Duke University in 1951 and a master's degree in physics at the University of Maryland in 1953. He worked at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory full time for 25 years and part time for another 13, contributing to its satellite navigation work. He later developed a rechargeable implantable pacemaker that could be programmed by radio waves, helped miniaturize the implantable cardiac defibrillator, and went on to invent the implantable insulin pump, which became MiniMed, as well as numerous coronary stents and two feedback systems that warn of epileptic seizures and of heart attacks. He donated 30 million dollars to the University of Maryland College Park Foundation to establish a bioengineering department and an institute for biomedical devices, was awarded the TED Prize in 2005, and received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2016.