"Throughout this book, you will see many images and videos of what the heart prep at the
University of Minnesota’s Visible Heart Lab can produce. The results of Professor Iaizzo and
his research team exceeded my most optimistic projections of the value of the investment.
The Visible Heart Lab brings a new depth of understanding to what actually is going on inside
beating animal and human hearts. It has helped to reshape how the industry designs and
evaluates products. It changed how we made decisions on products to fund or not fund and
impacted how we ran our business. In advocating for the investment, Tim Laske, Mark Hjelle,
and I made one mistake—we underestimated what Dr. Iaizzo and his team were capable of
accomplishing. We would not make that mistake again. I do not believe failure is ever considered
as an option by his team."
