7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

A staunch anticommunist, Teller devoted much time
in the 1960s to his crusade to keep the United States ahead
of the Soviet Union in nuclear arms. He opposed the 1963
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear weapons
testing in the atmosphere, and he was a champion of
Project Plowshare, an unsuccessful federal government
program to find peaceful uses for atomic explosives. In the
1970s Teller remained a prominent government adviser on
nuclear weapons policy, and in 1982–83 he was a major
influence in President Ronald Reagan’s proposal of the
Strategic Defense Initiative, an attempt to create a
defense system against nuclear attacks by the Soviet
Union. In 2003 Teller was awarded the Presidential Medal
of Freedom.

Michael DeBakey

(b. Sept. 7, 1908, Lake Charles, La., U.S.—d. July 11, 2008,
Houston, Texas)

M

ichael Ellis DeBakey was an American cardiovascular
surgeon, educator, international medical states-
man, and pioneer in surgical procedures for treatment of
defects and diseases of the cardiovascular system.
In 1932 DeBakey devised the “roller pump,” an essential
component of the heart-lung machine that permitted
open-heart surgery. He also developed an efficient method
of correcting aortic aneurysms by grafting frozen blood
vessels to replace diseased vessels. By 1953 DeBakey had
developed a technique of using plastic tubing (Dacron)
instead of arterial homographs to replace diseased vessels.
In 1953 he performed the first successful carotid endart-
erectomy for stroke, in 1964 the first successful coronary
artery bypass, and in 1966 the first successful implantation
of a ventricular assist device.