Patricia Bath, an ophthalmologist who patented the Laserphaco Probe in 1988, has died at age 76.
With the tool — its name is short for short for laser photoablative cataract surgery — Bath became the “first African American female doctor to receive a medical patent,” the Washington Post reports.
Bath worked on the ophthalmology team at UCLA Medical Center until retiring in 1993.
She was a co-founder, in 1976, of the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness.
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In all, she held five U.S. patents.
Bath died in San Francisco from complications of cancer.
Read more at the Washington Post
