Dr. Robert Jarvik, who designed the first permanent artificial heart implanted in a human, died on Monday, May 26, 2025, at age 79. He talked with correspondent Richard Wagner for this “CBS Sunday Morning” report on biomedical engineering projects that aired on Oct. 14, 1979, three years before that first artificial heart transplant. Wagner also talked with Dr. Wilhem Kolff (who invented the kidney dialysis machine); polymer chemist Dr. Donald Lyman; Dr. J.D. Mortensen (director of Surgical Research at the University of Utah); and with patients who were experiencing life with artificial limbs and kidneys.

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