Walter Golaski and the Artificial Blood Vessel

On the Drexel University campus, a marker honors an inventor whose work has saved an untold number of lives. Walter Golaski was a Polish American engineer and Drexel graduate who, developed the Dense Knit Dacron Vascular Prosthesis, among the first practical artificial blood vessel replacements. Earlier grafts had been stiff, woven, and poorly suited to the body.

Golaski's textile engineering background was the key: he adapted precision knitting techniques from the garment industry to create a synthetic vessel that the human body could accept and that blood could flow through safely. He held numerous patents in industrial knitting machinery as well, and he worked to strengthen scholarly and cultural ties between Poland and the United States.