A closer look

Open heart surgery used to be the only fix for clogged arteries until Andreas Gruentzig decided to play balloon animal inside the human vascular system. In 1977, he invented a tiny, sausage-shaped balloon catheter that could be threaded into a diseased artery and inflated, squishing the plaque against the walls to restore blood flow. His insane kitchen-table prototype revolutionized cardiology and saved millions from having their ribcages cracked open like lobsters.