William H. Dobelle

William H. Dobelle (October 24, 1941 - October 5, 2004) was a biomedical researcher who developed advanced technologies that restored limited sight to blind patients. (Often also credited as Dr. William Dobelle, Dr. William H. Dobelle, William Harvey Dobelle, Bill Dobelle and Dr. Bill Dobelle.)

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Childhood and Family

Dr. William Harvey Dobelle was the son of Martin Dobelle and Lillian Mendelsohn Dobelle , born in Pittsfield, MA on October 24th, 1941. William's younger brother Evan Dobelle, an American politician and educator, was born in 1945. His father Martin Dobelle, a major orthopedic surgeon whose patients included US astronauts, sparked William Dobelle's original interest and early experience in medicine. At the age of 13 Dobelle designed improvements for the artificial hip for which he received patents. He started college the following year at Vanderbilt. At 15 he won the State of Florida science fair for construction of an original concept x-ray machine. He moved on to win the National Science Fair.

Education

William graduated high school at the age of 14 to attend college at Vanderbilt. He soon transferred to Johns Hopkins University. He earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in biophysics at Johns Hopkins University where he worked on the development of medical tests. He finished his Ph.D. in neurophysiology at the University of Utah. As a graduate student, Dobelle left biomedical research for a short time in 1968 to enter politics, working for the Maryland Republican party.

Other

A member of the Explorers Club in New York City, he headed two expeditions to South America, one of which was responsible for tracking the original route of Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Dobelle once worked on a whaling boat and as a Porsche mechanic.

Career

He bought Avery Laboratories (now Avery Biomedical) in 1983, where he worked on artificial heart models and the artificial eye. Avery's portable breathing pacemaker has been used by patients with quadriplegia, central apnea, and other respiratory ailments. He was also CEO of the Dobelle Institute, headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal, which concentrates on artificial vision for the blind. He was associate director of the Institute of Biological Engineering at the University of Utah and director of the Division of Artificial Organs at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He was a founding fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Dr. Dobelle led one of several teams of scientists around the world seeking to develop technology for artificial vision. Dobelles' teams developed a brain implant which films the visual field in front of the patient and transmits it to the brain's visual cortex, allowing the patient to see outlines. He received widespread publicity in 2000 after his system restored limited navigational abilities to a blind volunteer.

He was also inducted as a Founding Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 1993, one of the highest honors available to an American scientist. Dr. Dobelle was inducted into the National Academy of Science in 1996 and was a co- nominee with Dr. Wilhelm Kolff for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003.

Death

Dobelle died in 2004 from an illness and is survived by his wife Claire Dobelle, and their three children, Martin, Molly and Mimi.

Notable family members

• Dobelle's brother, Evan Dobelle, is an American politician and educator.
• Dobelle's father, Martin Dobelle, was a veteran orthopedic surgeon.
• Dobelle's brother in law, Michael Wigler, is a pioneering molecular biologist and fellow member of the National Academy of Sciences.
• Dobelle's widow, Claire Dobelle, is a retired business woman and television producer.
• Three children, Martin David Dobelle (Born October 2, 1990), Molly Laura Maryland VIII Dobelle (Born January 31, 1992), and Mimi Lillian Dobelle (Born November 4, 1993)

See also

• Visual prosthetic

References

• Feature article sidebar in Mechanical Engineering, 2003
• Popular Mechanics article, 2002
• William H. Dobelle (obituary). Syosset-Jericho Tribune (2004-10-22). Retrieved on 2006-08-18.
• William H. Dobelle (obituary). SignOn San Diego (2004-11-04). Retrieved on 2006-08-18.