Cardiovascular
Cardiovascular: timeline of key events
Date |
Event |
People |
Places |
Harvey was the first physician to describe in detail the pump action of the heart and the circulation of blood. He published this work in 1628. His findings sparked controversy at the time because they challenged Galen's teachings that blood passed between ventricles through invisible pores and the traditional view that blood circulation involved two separate systems. 1578-04-01T00:00:00+00001 Apr 1578 | | William Harvey was born in Folkestone, United KingdomHarvey | |
Harvey was an English physician. He was the first physician to describe in detail the pump action of the heart and the circulation of blood. He published this work in 1628. His findings sparked controversy at the time because they challenged Galen's teachings that blood passed between ventricles through invisible pores and the traditional view that blood circulation involved two separate systems.
1657-06-03T00:00:00+00003 Jun 1657 | | William Harvey diedHarvey | |
Withering was a physician who made the first systematic investigations of digitalis. He is said to have started studying it after noticing that a person with dropsy (swelling from congestive heart failure) improved after taking a traditional herbal remedy that included an ingredient from the foxglove plant. Following this he made careful assessments of extracts from foxglove leaves to establish what dose was safe to administer to patients. He published his findings in 1785. This paved the pay to use of digitalis as a treatment for steadying and strengthening heart action. 1741-03-17T00:00:00+000017 Mar 1741 | | William Withering born in Wellington, Shropshire, United KingdomWithering | |
Withering was a British physician who made the first systematic investigations of digitalis. He is said to have started studying it after noticing that a person with dropsy (swelling from congestive heart failure) improved after taking a traditional herbal remedy that included an ingredient from the foxglove plant. Following this he made careful assessments of extracts from foxglove leaves to establish what dose was safe to administer to patients. He published his findings in 1785. This paved the pay to use of digitalis as a treatment for steadying and strengthening heart action.1799-10-06T00:00:00+00006 Oct 1799 | | William Withering diedWithering | |
Allbutt was an English physician who is renowned for inventing the short clinical thermometer. He introduced the instrument in 1866. It was a marked improvement on the previous foot-long thermometer which took 20 minutes to register a patient's temperature. In 1871 he introduced the use of the ophthalmoscope to inspect the interior of the eye. A few years later, in 1894, Allbutt determined that the painful heart condition angina pectoris stems from the aorta. 1836-07-20T00:00:00+000020 Jul 1836 | | Thomas Clifford Allbutt was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, UKAllbutt | University of Cambridge |
A physician and physiologist, Richards shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956 for helping to develop cardiac catherisation. The technique involves the use of a flexible tube inserted at the elbow vein which is then pushed up to the heart. He developed the method at Bellevue Hospital in New York in collaboration with Andre Cournand. The technique enabled them to study and characterise traumatic shock and the physiology of heart failure as well as to evaluate the effects of cardiac drugs. It also paved the way for them to develop techniques for the diagnosis of congenital heart diseases. 1895-10-30T00:00:00+000030 Oct 1895 | | Dickinson W Richards, Jr, was born in Orange, New Jersey, USADickinson Richards | Bellevue Hospital |
Blalock was a surgeon who in 1944 helped to pioneer a new surgical procedure, known as subclavian-pulmonary artery anastomosis, for infants born with 'blue baby' syndrome (tetralogy of Fallot). Such babies have a hole in the wall between their heart's two major chambers (ventricles). Earlier in his career, Blalock demonstrated, with the help of his African-American laboratory assistant, Vivien Thomas, that surgical shock stems primarily from the loss of blood. This led to the use of plasma or whole-blood transfusions as treatment following the onset of shock. 1899-04-05T00:00:00+00005 Apr 1899 | | Alfred Blalock was born in Culloden, Georgia, USABlalock | Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins University |
Forssmann was a surgeon who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1956 for helping to develop a procedure that allows for cardiac catheterisation. He first tried out the technique on himself in 1929 by inserting a catheter into his vein and up to his heart after giving himself local anaesthesia. First used in patients in 1941, Forssmann's procedure has proved an invaluable tool in cardiovascular diagnosis and research. It also paved the way to the insertion of pacemakers, angioplasty, and valve repair. 1904-08-29T00:00:00+000029 Aug 1904 | | Werner Forssmann was born in Berlin, GermanyForssmann | |
Furchgott was a biochemist. He is best known for having shown the signalling function of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system. In 1966 he noticed a substance in cells on the interior surface of blood vessels were capable of relaxing the blood vessels. He called the substance endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF). By 1986 he had worked out the function and mechanism of action of EDRF and found out that it was a nitric oxide. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1998 on the back of this work, Furchgott's discoveries helped explained a wide variety of neuronal, cardiovascular and other physiological processes important to human health and disease.1916-06-04T00:00:00+00004 Jun 1916 | | Robert F Furchgott was born in Charleston, SC, USAFurchgott | State University of New York |
Cooley was a pioneering American heart surgeon who helped the development of artificial heart valves in 1962, which dramatically reduced the mortality rate for heart valve transplant patients. He also pioneered delicate procedures to correct congenital heart defects in infants and children. In 1969 he became the first heart surgeon to implant a total artificial heart. Made of silicone, the mechanical heart served as a temporary bridge to keep a 47 year old patient, Haskell Karp, alive long enough to find a transplant donor. The artificial heart sustained Karp for 3 days. He subsequently died 32 hours after receiving a donated human heart. Sparking intensive research into the development of artificial hearts, Cooley's work opened up major debates about the harvesting and allocation of organs for transplants, a heated subject that continues to this day. 1920-08-22T00:00:00+000022 Aug 1920 | | Denton A Cooley was born in Houston, Texas, USACooley | Texas Heart Institute |
Daly trained as a biochemist and was the first Black American woman to earn a doctorate in chemistry (from Columbia University, 1947). Her early research looked at the effects of cholesterol on the mechanisms of the heart, the effects sugars and other nutrients on the health of the arteries and the impact of advanced aged and hypertension on the circulatory system. This she did at Rockefeller Institute in New York. She subsequently joined Columbia University where she investigated how proteins are produced and organised in the cell. In addition to her scientific work, Daly was an ardent campaigner for getting minority students into medical school and graduate science programmes. 1921-04-16T00:00:00+000016 Apr 1921 | | Marie M Daly was born in Corona, Queens, NY, USAMary Daly | Rockefeller Institute, Columbia University |
Akutsu was a thoracic surgeon who is credited with the development of first artificial heart that was capable of keeping an animal alive. He created the device using a combination of a wax mould of blood pumps and electroplating it in acid copper solution and developing separate heart valves. The heart was implanted into a dog on 12 December 1957 and the animal remained alive for 90 minutes. Akutsu, then based at the University of Nagoya, built the device and implanted it into the dog in collaboration with Willem Kolff at Cleveland Clinic. The work paved the way to the development of artificial hearts for humans. 1922-08-20T00:00:00+000020 Aug 1922 | | Tetsuzo Akutsu was born in JapanTetsuzo | University of Nagoya, Cleveland Clinic, University of Missisippi, Texas Heart Institute, Kanazawa Medical College, Tokyo Medical and Dental University |
Allbutt was an English physician who is renowned for inventing the short clinical thermometer. He introduced the instrument in 1866. It was a marked improvement on the previous foot-long thermometer which took 20 minutes to register a patient's temperature. In 1871 he introduced the use of the ophthalmoscope to inspect the interior of the eye. A few years later, in 1894, Allbutt determined that the painful heart condition angina pectoris stems from the aorta.1925-02-22T00:00:00+000022 Feb 1925 | | Thomas Clifford Allbutt diedAllbutt | University of Cambridge |
Murad is an Albanian-American physician and pharmacologist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1998 for helping to show that nitric oxide acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. The identification of the biological role of nitric oxide was especially surprising because up to this moment it had been mostly known as a harmful air pollutant. Scientists were also struck by the discovery because nitric oxide is a simple molecule, unlike other neurotransmitters which have complex structures. Helping to reveal a totally new mechanism for how blood vessels in the body relax and widen, the discovery paved the way to development of the anti-impotence drug Viagra and potential new approaches for understanding and treating other diseases.1936-09-14T00:00:00+000014 Sep 1936 | | Ferid Murad was born in Whiting, Indiana, USAMurat | University of Virginia |
Jarvik is a medical scientist best known for having invented the first artificial heart used as a permanent replacement for a natural heart. The first person to receive the heart was Barney Clark, a retired dentist, who survived 112 days after the operation, performed in 1982. The second patient, William Schroeder, survived 620 days after being given the artificial heart. 1946-05-11T00:00:00+000011 May 1946 | | Robert Koffler Jarvik was born in Midland, Michigan, USAJarvik | Midland, Michigan |
The surgery was performed on Henry Opticek, a 41-year-old male suffering from shortness of breath, by Forest D Dodrill at Harper University Hospital at Wayne State University in Michigan. Dodrill was able to keep the patient's left atrium open and repair the mitral valve by using mechanical pump which maintained the body's blood supply during the operation. Dodrill devised the pump with the help of researchers at General Motors. 1952-07-03T00:00:00+00003 Jul 1952 | | First successful open heart surgery performedDodrill, Opticek | Wayne State University |
Blalock was an American surgeon who in 1944 helped to pioneer a new surgical procedure, known as subclavian-pulmonary artery anastomosis, for infants born with 'blue baby' syndrome (tetralogy of Fallot). Such babies have a hole in the wall between their heart's two major chambers (ventricles). Earlier in his career, Blalock demonstrated, with the help of his African-American laboratory assistant, Vivien Thomas, that surgical shock stems primarily from the loss of blood. This led to the use of plasma or whole-blood transfusions as treatment following the onset of shock.1964-09-15T00:00:00+000015 Sep 1964 | | Alfred Blalock diedBlalock | Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins University |
An American physician and physiologist, Richards shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956 for helping to develop cardiac catherisation. The technique involves the use of a flexible tube inserted at the elbow vein which is then pushed up to the heart. He developed the method at Bellevue Hospital in New York in collaboration with Andre Cournand. The technique enabled them to study and characterise traumatic shock and the physiology of heart failure as well as to evaluate the effects of cardiac drugs. It also paved the way for them to develop techniques for the diagnosis of congenital heart diseases.1973-02-23T00:00:00+000023 Feb 1973 | | Dickinson W Richards diedDickinson Richards | Bellevue Hospital |
Forssmann was a German surgeon who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1956 for helping to develop a procedure that allows for cardiac catheterisation. He first tried out the technique on himself in 1929 by inserting a catheter into his vein and up to his heart after giving himself local anaesthesia. First used in patients in 1941, Forssmann's procedure has proved an invaluable tool in cardiovascular diagnosis and research. It also paved the way to the insertion of pacemakers, angioplasty, and valve repair.1979-06-01T00:00:00+00001 Jun 1979 | | Werner Forssmann diedForssmann | |
Kavaler was an American physiologist at the State University of New York. He is renowned for pioneering cardiac electrophysiology techniques to investigate the mechanism behind the contraction of individual heart cells. Based on his study of frog heart muscle in the 1960s and 1970s, Kavaler showed that changes in calcium ion concentrations outside heart cells controlled heart contractions. This laid the foundation for the development of drugs to treat heart disease. 1998-01-04T00:00:00+00004 Jan 1998 | | Frederic Kavaler diedKavaler | State University of New York |
The mechanical heart, known as AbioCor, was transplanted into a 59 year old diabetic middle-aged man, Robert Tools, at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Tools was the first of five patients in a clinical trial. Tools lived for 151 days after the transplant. AbioCor was the first artificial device to closely mimic the heart. It was developed by David Lederman and colleagues at AbioMed, a Massachusetts-based company using advances in miniaturisation, biosensors, plastics and energy transfer. A total of 15 patients received the heart before its development was abandoned due to insufficient evidence of efficacy. 2001-07-02T00:00:00+00002 Jul 2001 | | First self-contained mechanical heart successfully implanted into a humanLederman, Tools | Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Abiomed |
Daly trained as a biochemist and was the first Black American woman to earn a doctorate in chemistry (from Columbia University, 1947). Her early research looked at the effects of cholesterol on the mechanisms of the heart, the effects sugars and other nutrients on the health of the arteries and the impact of advanced aged and hypertension on the circulatory system. This she did at Rockefeller Institute in New York. She subsequently joined Columbia University where she investigated how proteins are produced and organised in the cell. In addition to her scientific work, Daly was an ardent campaigner for getting minority students into medical school and graduate science programmes.2003-10-28T00:00:00+000028 Oct 2003 | | Marie M Daly diedMary Daly | Rockefeller Institute, Columbia University |
Akutsu was a Japanese thoracic surgeon who is credited with the development of first artificial heart that was capable of keeping an animal alive. He created the device using a combination of a wax mould of blood pumps and electroplating it in acid copper solution and developing separate heart valves. The heart was implanted into a dog on 12 December 1957 and the animal remained alive for 90 minutes. Akutsu, then based at the University of Nagoya, built the device and implanted it into the dog in collaboration with Willem Kolff at Cleveland Clinic. The work paved the way to the development of artificial hearts for humans.
2007-08-09T00:00:00+00009 Aug 2007 | | Akutsu Tetsuzo diedTetsuzo | University of Nagoya, Cleveland Clinic, University of Missisippi, Texas Heart Institute, Kanazawa Medical College, Tokyo Medical and Dental University |
Furchgott was an American biochemist. He is best known for having shown the signalling function of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system. In 1966 he noticed a substance in cells on the interior surface of blood vessels were capable of relaxing the blood vessels. He called the substance endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF). By 1986 he had worked out the function and mechanism of action of EDRF and found out that it was a nitric oxide. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1998 on the back of this work, Furchgott's discoveries helped explained a wide variety of neuronal, cardiovascular and other physiological processes important to human health and disease. 2009-05-19T00:00:00+000019 May 2009 | | Robert F Furchgott diedFurchgott | State University of New York |
The team who did the research was led by Kenneth Chien. L Zangi, KO Lui, A von Gise, et al, 'Modified mRNA directs the fate of heart progenitor cells and induces vascular regeneration after myocardial infarction', Nature Biotechnology, 31/10 (Oct 2013), 898-907.2013-10-01T00:00:00+0000October 2013 | | Modified mRNA shown to help improve heart function in miceLior Zangi, Kathy Lui, von Gise, Qing Ma, Ebina,Ptaszek, Spater, Huansheng Xu, Tabebordbar,Gorbatov, Sena, Nahrendorf, David Briscoe,Ronald Li, Amy Wagers, Rossi, William Pu, Kenneth Chien | Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Children's Hospital Boston, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Karolinska Institute |
Cooley was a pioneering American heart surgeon who helped the development of artificial heart valves in 1962, which dramatically reduced the mortality rate for heart valve transplant patients. He also pioneered delicate procedures to correct congenital heart defects in infants and children. In 1969 he became the first heart surgeon to implant a total artificial heart. Made of silicone, the mechanical heart served as a temporary bridge to keep a 47 year old patient, Haskell Karp, alive long enough to find a transplant donor. The artificial heart sustained Karp for 3 days. He subsequently died 32 hours after receiving a donated human heart. Sparking intensive research into the development of artificial hearts, Cooley's work opened up major debates about the harvesting and allocation of organs for transplants, a heated subject that continues to this day. 2016-11-18T00:00:00+000018 Nov 2016 | | Denton A Cooley diedCooley | Texas Heart Institute |
Evidence collected from randomised, doublice-blind, placebo controled study of 27,000 patients in 49 countries between Feb 2013 and June 2015. MS Sabatine, et al, 'Evolocumab and Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Cardiovascular Disease', NEJM, 2017, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1615664.2017-03-17T00:00:00+000017 Mar 2017 | | Monoclonal antibody shown to effectively cut cholesterol levels, thereby preventing heart attacks and strokes | Sabatine |
M. Hong, N. Marti-Gutierrez, S-W Park, et al, 'Correction of a pathogenic gene mutation in human embryos', Nature, doi:10.1038/nature233052017-08-02T00:00:00+00002 Aug 2017 | | Research published demonstrating possibility of editing gene defect in pre-implanted human embryos for preventing inherited heart diseaseHong, Marti-Gutierrez, Park, Mitalipov, Kaul, Kim, Amato, Belmonte | Oregon Health & Science University, Salk Institute, Center for Genome Engineering, Seoul National University, China National GeneBank, |
William Harvey was born in Folkestone, United Kingdom
William Withering born in Wellington, Shropshire, United Kingdom
Thomas Clifford Allbutt was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, UK
Dickinson W Richards, Jr, was born in Orange, New Jersey, USA
Alfred Blalock was born in Culloden, Georgia, USA
Werner Forssmann was born in Berlin, Germany
Robert F Furchgott was born in Charleston, SC, USA
Denton A Cooley was born in Houston, Texas, USA
Marie M Daly was born in Corona, Queens, NY, USA
Tetsuzo Akutsu was born in Japan
Thomas Clifford Allbutt died
Ferid Murad was born in Whiting, Indiana, USA
Robert Koffler Jarvik was born in Midland, Michigan, USA
First successful open heart surgery performed
Dickinson W Richards died
First self-contained mechanical heart successfully implanted into a human
Modified mRNA shown to help improve heart function in mice
Monoclonal antibody shown to effectively cut cholesterol levels, thereby preventing heart attacks and strokes
Research published demonstrating possibility of editing gene defect in pre-implanted human embryos for preventing inherited heart disease
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