This week the nonprofit TED is celebrating 1 billion video views with a series of playlists put together by celebrities like Bill Gates and Ben Affleck.

The organization’s entire offering of videos contains some fascinating talks on science, medicine and running a business. Below are just four of the ones we would put on our “most inspiring” list for life science inventors and entrepreneurs. Comment or tweet your top TED talks to @medcitynews.com.

Drew Berry: Animations of unseeable biology

In this video, a biomedical animator shows some astounding digital visualizations of the complex processes happening inside the billions of cells in our bodies.

Tal Golesworthy: How I repaired my own heart

Born with the genetic defect called Marfan syndrome, Golesworthy faced a life-threatening problem with his aorta. The surgery he needed, though, would be incredibly risky and require a lifetime of anti-coagulation therapy to follow. Unsatisfied with his options, the boiler engineer set out to create his own solution. The result was a successful procedure that led to the founding of a company, ExoVasc.

Abraham Verghese: A doctor’s touch

Verghese argues that modern healthcare is losing sight of medicine’s greatest innovation: the human hand. Even the most sophisticated technologies can’t pick up on the information the doctor can with his own senses, he explains.

E.O. Wilson: Advice to young scientists

In an “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)” for scientists, the celebrated biologist dishes out advice based on a lifetime of experience. “For every scientist ’ whether researcher, technician, teacher, manager or businessman ’ working at any level of mathematical competence, there exists a discipline in science or medicine for which that level is enough to achieve excellence,” he reminds us.

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