After receiving a BSME degree Cum Laude from Duke University in 1951, Robert E. Fischell earned his MS in Physics degree from the University of Maryland in 1953 and an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 1996. Dr. Fischell is a prolific inventor and Chairman and CEO of Fischell Biomedical, LLC plus several other medical device companies.
Starting in 1969, Dr. Fischell was President and Chairman of MedInTec, Inc. a small medical technology development company in Dayton, Maryland. MedInTec created several medical device inventions by Dr. Fischell in collaboration with his three sons, David, Tim and Scott Fischell. The Fischell inventions include most of the heart stents that have been implanted in more than ten million patients throughout the world. Other Fischell inventions include a heart pacemaker, the implanted heart defibrillator, the implanted insulin pump for diabetic patients, a device implanted in the cranial bone to treat epilepsy and a device implanted in the upper chest that can warn a patient of a heart attack before any symptoms occur. Dr. Fischell has received more than 160 issued patents in the USA with several other patents still pending. He also has a comparable number of patents issued in foreign countries.
Dr. Fischell spent 30 years with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which resulted in 53 patents in both aerospace and biomedical technology. Prior to his employment with the Applied Physics Lab, Dr. Fischell worked at the U.S. Naval Ordinance Lab and was a staff physicist at Emerson Research Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland. During that time, Dr. Fischell also established the privately-held company IsoStent, Inc. in Belmont, California with his son Dr. David Fischell. That company developed the first radioisotope stent and it was merged with Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson company in 1998.
Dr. Fischell is the recipient of numerous professional awards, including NASA’s Exceptional Engineering Award and NASA’s Individual Achievement Award. He has been inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame and he was recognized for three different years by Industrial Research Magazine for creating one of the 100 most significant inventions in each of those years. Dr. Fischell has received many other honors that recognize his numerous contributions to mankind including the award for Inventor of the Year for the USA in 1984, the outstanding engineering graduate award of Duke University in 1992 and the recipient of the honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters from the Johns Hopkins University in 2008. Probably the most notable evidence of his accomplishments resulted in his election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1989.
Dr. Fischell serves on the Board of Visitors of the College of Engineering, as a Trustee of the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of the University System of Maryland and he is a member of the Board of Visitors of the University of Maryland, School of Medicine.
He has established the Robert E. Fischell Lecture at the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. In 2005, Dr. Fischell’s philanthropy created the Fischell Department of Bioengineering within the Clark School of Engineering and the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Medical Devices. That Department has become of exceptional value to the School of Engineering and to the University.
He and his wife, Susan, live in Dayton, Maryland where he continues to create medical device inventions from the office in his home.
Robert E. Fischell
