Chief scientific advisor of Vactronix Scientific and an honorary Ashbel Smith Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, USA
Chief scientific advisor of Vactronix Scientific and an honorary Ashbel Smith Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, USA
Julio C. Palmaz, inventor of the first FDA-approved balloon-expandable vascular stent (1990), is Ashbel Smith Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and scientific advisor of Vactronix Scientific. The Palmaz stent is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington. In 1994 he and Richard Schatz created a modified coronary stent—two Palmaz stents joined by a single connector—approved by the FDA as the first stent indicated for the treatment of failure of coronary balloon angioplasty. The Palmaz-Schatz stent became the gold standard for every subsequent stent submitted for FDA approval.
Dr. Palmaz was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2006) and National Academy of Inventors (2013) and selected for the Gold medal (2007) of the Society of Interventional Radiology. He is a Distinguished Scientist and fellow of the American Heart Association and fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and Society of Interventional Radiology.
He has also received honorary recognitions from the Argentinian College of Cardiology, National University of La Plata, International Society of Endovascular Surgery, Society of Interventional Radiology, German Roentgen Society, San Antonio chapter of the AHA, Washington Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Society of Cardiac Angiography, Texas Heart Institute, Texas Bar Association, Surfaces in Biomaterials Foundation, and Cardiovascular Interventional Radiology Society of Europe. He has 60 patents and has authored over 35 books or book chapters and over 100 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals.
Dr. Palmaz joined the University of Texas Health Sciences Department of Radiology in 1983 as chief of angiography and special procedures. He received his MD in 1971 at the National University of La Plata, Argentina, with radiology specialty training at the University of California, Davis and Martinez (CA) VA Medical Center.