Every person who invents multiple items has some favorites. I am a great believer in the power of the flow state, of time that allows for incubation of an idea and an opportunity for many hours of solitude. This can happen on a long airplane flight. One of my favorite inventions is a hand-held disposable ozone generator, the size of a 20cc syringe, which I designed on an eight-hour flight home from a “neuro” meeting in Bologna. IN 2011 the US FDA was giving us grief over it, but it is brilliant and builds on the idea of Mario Muto and the other brilliant Italian interventionalists who started doing this procedure. Airplanes are great because you get left alone for long periods of time which is essential for creative thought.

Another favorite invention is my density and drug-eluting coronary stent design which you can see at implantation but elutes density over time allowing visualization of the lumen on CT without beam hardening artifact. I am proud of the inspiration and perseverance that led to that device.

I have to add to my favorites the use of parathyroid hormone systemically in pulsed doses to integrate bone cement. This delivers like fertilizer in a garden, as a spray using a vibrating needle, not a weight-bearing cement injection. One thing I learned in exploring this innovation is that we have to move on from focusing on the implant which is so industry-driven. The future is about biomiomicry, doing things and leaving no footprint. There is no end to the opportunity for minds that are prepared and individuals willing to put forth the effort and passion to innovate.

Where are opportunities? Cardiologists know that while they may stent a vessel, the plavix and lipitor and angiotensin-converting enzyme are the critical long-term elements, not the stent. We have to get to this point.

When you invent something, it takes 5–7 years for it to become accepted. All the time you wonder if you are right. Last year, I saw a lecture by a US naval officer about his work after the tsunami off Indonesia and he showed a picture of a CT-guided biopsy of spinal osteomyelitis and they were using one of my biopsy needles. There is no greater sense of accomplishment than making a positive impact on the patients whose lives are better because of my work – because of all the work of those who dare to invent.