Albert Starr

Starr resided and practiced in the Portland, Oregon, area and was special adviser to OHSU Dean of Medicine Mark Richardson and OHSU President Joseph Robertson (OHSU) at Oregon Health and Science University.

He then went on to do his internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital and his residency in general and thoracic surgery at the Bellevue and Presbyterian Hospitals of Columbia University.

He was an assistant in surgeon at Columbia University until 1957, when he moved to Oregon—having been enticed, in part, by the Oregon Heart Association's promises to help fund his research and to take him salmon fishing.

Starr was an instructor in surgery when he met Lowell Edwards in September 1958.

Starr helped invent the world's first durable artificial mitral valve[3] and is credited with being a co-inventor of the world's first artificial heart valve in 1960.