The father of Osseointegration and the godfather of the BAHA: Professor Per-Ingvar Brånemark, Göteborg Sweden has passed away in his 86th year.

Branemark got his medical training at University of Lund where he studied rheology in the living bone of the rabbit. During these studies he noted bone fragments on the surface of his titanium implant, in those days a metal not commonly used in medicine. This capacity of serendipity opened the way for modern implantology. He coined the finding osseointegration, a term today well known especially amongst otolaryngologists [1]. In 1960, he moved to University of Goteborg. He got numerous awards and been honorary doctorates at 29 universities. He guided more than 40 Ph.D. students to dissertations. The first clinical application of osseointegration was dental implants in the edentulous jaw [2]. Today this is considered as the golden standard for bone-anchored dentures and millions of patients all over the world have benefitted from his pioneering work. Branemark tried to find an acoustic way to evaluate implant stability. This became one of the starting points for hearing through direct bone conduction. Patients hard of hearing cannot always be helped with surgical reconstruction and some cannot use a conventional hearing aid. Chronic ear disease and congenital malformations are two reasons for this. Branemark suggested placing titanium implant in the bone behind the ear and after healing an impedance-matched transducer was attached to the implant. This work was made in close cooperation between him, the Department of Otolaryngology at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Goteborg and Chalmers University of Technology also in Goteborg. Bo Hakansson, now professor at Chalmers, was the innovator of the new transducer that since then has been refined and become smaller and yet more effective [3, 4]. In 2005, Cochlear BAS was created and RD some did not even go out in daylight hours. Using the same implants as for the BAHA the patients got implants for retention for facial prostheses made of Silicon. The technical and artistically development was made by anaplastologist Kerstin Bergstrom at our Implant Unit. Branemark took an eager interest in this work, and especially in major defect, he was often the leading A. Tjellstrom (&) Department of Otolaryngology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Goteborg, Gothenburg, Sweden e-mail: anders.tjellstrom@orlss.gu.se