George Andreasen
Encyclopedia
George F. Andreasen was an American orthodontist and inventor.

Adnreasen was born February 16, 1934 in Fremont, Nebraska
Fremont, Nebraska
Fremont is a city in and the county seat of Dodge County, Nebraska, United States, near Omaha in the eastern part of the state. The population was 26,397 at the 2010 census....

.

Andreasen, most noted for his invention and patent of the Nitinol Wire, also known as Memory Wire or shape memory alloy
Shape memory alloy
A shape-memory alloy is an alloy that "remembers" its original, cold-forged shape: returning the pre-deformed shape by heating. This material is a lightweight, solid-state alternative to conventional actuators such as hydraulic, pneumatic, and motor-based systems...

, began his experimentation with the nickel
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...

-titanium
Titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....

 (NiTi) alloys as early as 1969. His idea for Nitonal came from an article he read in the United States Naval laboratory publication supplement in the Journal of American Orthodontics. Over the course of the next seven years, Andreasen experimented with his formula until he reached his goal and was awarded U.S. Pat. No. 4,037,324 on July 26, 1979. To this day, this is the highest earning patent fostered by the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

 College of Orthodontics.

Dr Andreasen joined the University of Iowa Orthodontics department in 1963 and was chairman of the orthodontics department from 1965 to 1975. He held degrees in mechanical engineering and in dentistry from Oxford University and the University of Nebraska. He was a diplomat of the American Board of Orthodontics. Dr. Andreasen died on August 11, 1989 of multiple myeloma
Multiple myeloma
Multiple myeloma , also known as plasma cell myeloma or Kahler's disease , is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell normally responsible for the production of antibodies...

at the age of 55.
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