User:Netha Hussain/Takuo Aoyagi

Takuo Aoyagi is a Japanese biomedical engineer. He is known for his work in inventing the modern pulse oximeter. The pulse oximeter is an indispensable tool in detecting severely ill patients with COVID-19.

Early life and career
Takuo Aoyagi was born on February 14, 1936 in Niigata Prefecture in Japan. His parents were Monshichi and Tatsu Aoyagi. His father was a maths teacher and his mother was a homemaker. He got a degree in electrical engineering from Niigata University in 1958. He worked for Shimadzu and then joined Nihon Kohden in 1971. His pathbreaking research that led to the invention of the pulse oximeter happened during his job in Nihon Kohden. In 1993, he got a doctorate in engineering from the University of Tokyo. His wife is Yoshiko and he has three children. He died on May 1, 2020 at the age of 84.

Research
Aoyagi's research first focused on measuring cardiac output by injecting a patient with a dye. He tried to measure the cardiac output by measuring the concentration of the dye in the blood stream by using early oximeters. These oximeters were less reliable, which led him to create a new oximeter that detects the oxygen saturation of blood by clipping a device to a finger. He and his colleague Michio Kishi applied for the patent of the pulse oximeter jointly in Japan. They were granted the patent in 1979. He has been honoured with JS Gravenstein Award from the society for Technology in Anaesthesia in 2013. In 2002, he received a Medal with Purple Ribbon from the Japanese Emperor in recognition for his achievements. He was the first Japanese national to be awarded the IEEE medal for innovations in health care technology.