On Sept. 15, 1997, Alain Carpentier at Hospital European Goerges Pompidou in Paris and Albert Starr at Providence Health & Services in Portland, Oregon received Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research “the development of prosthetic mitral and aortic valves, which have prolonged and enhanced the lives of millions of people with heart disease.”

Albert Starr and his engineer partner, the late Lowell Edwards, invented the world’s first successful artificial heart valve. This device has transformed life for people with serious valve disease, providing a remedy where none previously existed. Alain Carpentier then circumvented the predominant limitation of mechanical valves ﾗ a propensity to clot within blood vessels and the associated need to take blood thinners ﾗ by adapting animal valves for use in humans.