Per-Ingvar Branemark, Modern dental implant innovator

I never heard of this guy, until I saw his obit. in the NY Times. A Swedish orthpodedic surgeon whose research and discoveries revolutionized dental implants. 

Implants have been a major advance in dentistry, liberating millions of elderly people from painful, ill-fitting dentures, a diet of soft foods and the ignominy of a sneeze that sends false teeth flying out of the mouth. But addressing those problems was not Dr. Branemark’s initial intent.

At the start of his career, he was studying how blood flow affects bone healing.

In 1952, he and his team put optical devices encased in titanium into the lower legs of rabbits in order to study the healing process. When the research period ended and they went to remove the devices, they discovered to their surprise that the titanium had fused into the bone and could not be removed.

Dr. Branemark called the process “osseointegration,” and his research took a whole new direction as he realized that if the body could tolerate the long-term presence of titanium, the metal could be used to create an anchor for artificial teeth.

Pretty interesting and vital to many peoples' health.