Willem Kolff at the Cleveland Clinic

Year

1950-1960s

By

Willem Johan Kolff

Company

Cleveland Clinic

Place

Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Cleveland · Cuyahoga County

In the early 1940s kidney failure was nearly always fatal. A Dutch physician, Willem Kolff, born in 1911 in Leiden, set out to clean the blood by machine. His first dialyzer, in 1943, was built from orange juice cans, used auto parts and sausage casings. The first attempts failed, but in 1945 he saved a 67-year-old woman with hemodialysis.

Kolff moved to the United States in 1950 and became a citizen in 1955. He worked at the Cleveland Clinic on heart-lung machines and better dialysis devices. This entry is about his work at the Clinic, not a claim that it was the first artificial kidney in the United States.

He later made the Kolff-Brigham Artificial Kidney at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the first production model. In 1967 he headed the Division of Artificial Organs at the University of Utah, where his lab produced the first implanted artificial heart in 1982, in patient Barney Clark, who lived four months.

Called the Father of Artificial Organs, Kolff won over 120 awards. He died in 2009.

• 1943: Kolff builds his first dialyzer from simple parts. (Netherlands) source
• 1945: Kolff saves a 67-year-old woman with hemodialysis. (Netherlands) source
• 1950: Kolff moves to the United States and works at the Cleveland Clinic. (Cleveland, OH) source
• 1967: Kolff heads the University of Utah's Division of Artificial Organs. (Salt Lake City, UT) source
• 1982: The first implanted artificial heart (patient Barney Clark) lasts four months. (Salt Lake City, UT) source

• The first successful hemodialysis treatment in 1945 saved a 67-year-old woman.
• The artificial heart of 1982 ran for four months.

Pioneered dialysis.

• Wikipedia: Willem Johan Kolff

• Wikipedia: Willem Johan Kolff