The 10 most influential medical and dental inventors
Ten physical diagnostic and therapeutic platforms with strong documented clinical reach or field-defining influence.
The 2026 selection
Ranked within medical & dental using evidence of physical-world reach, a defining technical contribution, sustained relevance and source quality. Open any profile to inspect the underlying evidence.
- 01
The Palmaz Stent was the first commercially successful intravascular stent and helped make coronary stenting standard.
Profile + sources - 02
MitraClip established a major transcatheter alternative for mitral-valve repair.
Profile + sources - 03
More than 400,000 people had been treated with the Impella platform by 2024.
Profile + sources - 04
Negative-pressure wound therapy became a standard device-mediated treatment approach.
Profile + sources - 05
Shear-wave ultrasound became a clinically important way to assess tissue stiffness.
Profile + sources - 06
Butterfly iQ put a broad-capability ultrasound transducer on a semiconductor chip in a handheld device.
Profile + sources - 07
MinION turned nanopore sensing into a compact commercial sequencer usable outside conventional labs.
Profile + sources - 08
Sequencing-by-synthesis enabled next-generation DNA sequencing at scale.
Profile + sources - 09
The fiber-optic array became a commercial high-throughput assay platform.
Profile + sources - 10
Paper microfluidics made basic analytical chemistry portable and reduced equipment requirements.
Profile + sources