Yury Verlinsky, a genetic researcher, died of colon cancer at the age of 65. According to the Los Angeles Times, Verlinsky immigrated to the US from the Soviet Union in 1979 and was the first in the US to perform chorionic villus sampling — which was already done in the Soviet Union and Europe — to detect birth defects. Verlinsky then developed pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, inspired by a Joan Miro painting.