Charles A. Hufnagel

At Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, he began work on the heart and other organ transplants and explored the use of plastic to replace blood vessels, developing a technique called multi-point fixation, which would have great importance in the placement of the artificial aortic valve.

In 1950, Hufnagel joined the Georgetown University faculty as director of the surgical research laboratory and professor of surgery.

In September 1952 Hufnagel, then director of the Georgetown University Medical Center's surgical research laboratory, implanted an aortic "assist" valve into the circulatory system of a 30-year-old woman.

[1] The first patient to receive the plastic implant had rheumatic fever, which had severely damaged her aortic valve to the point where she was given little chance to live.

Hufnagel was a member of more than 75 surgical and academic societies in the United States, Europe and South America.