science · 11 February 2009 · 15 years ago
death
Died 11 Feb 2009 at age 97 (born 14 Feb 1911).
Willem Johan Kolff was a Dutch-American physician and biomedical enginer who pioneered artificial organs. He invented the artificial kidney machine in 1943, before he emigrated to the U.S. (1950). In Spring 1955, the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs was formed. Kolff became its first president. He headed a team which invented the first totally artificial heart, a pneumatic pump, which was tested on 12 Dec1957, implanted within the chest of dog. It kept the 20.7-kg dog alive for 90 minutes. This was the first time an animal had lived with an implanted totally artificial heart. By 2 Dec 1982, under his supervision, the first fully artificial heart was implanted in a human patient. It was designed by Robert K. Jarvik, one of Kolff's students, that implanted the artificial heart which kept the patient, Barney Clark, alive for 112 days, thus proving the viability of such a procedure.
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