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Timeline of Artificial Organs Technologies

"One definition of a man is an intelligence served by organs "
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

1885

M. Von Frey and M. Gruber built the first artificial heart apparatus, specifically for cardiopulmonary bypass and was used by John H. Gibbon to experiment on animals in Germany.

1880's

Dr. Kolff invented the artificial heart and kidney during World War II in Germany. He implanted the first artificial kidney to a 67 years-old female patient who was in a coma from kidney failure. After the surgery, she woke up and lived 7 more years. 

1948

1940's-1990's

1960

Dr. Quinton W, Dillard D and Scribner, the first directors of nephrology at the University of Washington invented a  device called "Scribner  Shunt " for blood access of hemodialysis for patients with kidney failure. 

1963

Dr. Ted Kolobow investigated a gas transfer through plastic films for heart lung failure. After he retired, his model, membrane oxygenator, was used by Sci Med of Minneapolis and later by Avecor, and then Medtronic for 30 years on "for almost all of the 30,000 patients treated with extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for heart or lung failure."

1967

On March 1967, Dr. Chris Barnard was the world's first person to perform surgery to transplant a human heart to a 53 year old man with a debilitating heart in South Africa.  

1968

Dr. Robert A. Good was the first person to successfully transplant human bone marrow to a patient.

1977

In October 3rd, 1977, Dr. Demetre Nicoloff was the first person to implant mechanical heart valves into a patient, Helen Heikkinen from Angora, Minnesota, in a U.S. universities.

1979

Dr. David Sutherland successfully transplanted a human pancreas-kidney to a patient from a donor.

1970's-1990's

Dr. Rainer W.G. Gruessner was the first doctor to transplant human pancreas, kidney, liver and intestine from a living donor. In 2015, it showed that he saved 2.2 million years of patients' lives.

2000's

2003

Dr. Kenneth Liao was the first doctor to transplant a robotic cardiac heart to a patient in the University of Minnesota.

2006

Dr. Kenneth Liao successfully implanted "a left ventricular assist device using minimally invasive techniques".

2010's

2013

Dr. Gabriel Loor was the first doctor to perform "breathing lung," cutting the side of the lung to let it breath before the transplant, on a 51 years old patient.

2016

Dr. Paolo Macchiarini did a surgery of "artificial organ transplantation, seeding inorganic trachea scaffolds with patients’ own stem cells and then introducing the resulting organ into patients with compromised respiratory systems" but the trachea had failed.

Artificial Organs are always being researched by many companies. Visit our innovators page to learn more about the companies and visit our reference page to see more information.

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