June 28, 2010

Happy Birthday, Alexis Carrel

This French scientist was born on this day in 1873. He moved to the U.S. in 1905, and in 1912 he won a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for developing a way to suture blood vessels. (Suture means to reconnect, join, sew back together.)

Carrel worked for a decade on experimental animals and managed to develop every technique used in vascular (blood vessel) surgery today.

He also worked on keeping tissue alive after it is removed from a living organism—this technology really helps with transplants—and even succeeded in keeping alive tissue from the heart of a chicken embryo for 35 years!



I am busy making every day special by taking a trip through California, Oregon, and Washington.

The daily posts will be minimal during my trip.

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