Willem Kolff became interested in artificial organs early in his medical career, after witnessing the death of a young patient from kidney failure—a condition that, at the time, had no effective treatment. Determined to find a solution, Kolff began imagining machines that could temporarily replace the function of failing human organs.
During World War II, while living in Nazi-occupied Holland, Kolff began building the first artificial kidney using whatever materials he could find like sausage casings, parts from a local factory, and orange juice cans. By 1942 he had a working prototype, and in 1945 his dialysis machine saved a patient’s life for the first time. That breakthrough laid the foundation for modern hemodialysis, which today sustains millions of people worldwide.
After the war, Kolff immigrated to the United States and joined the Cleveland Clinic, where he expanded his work beyond kidneys to the heart and lungs. He helped develop early heart-lung machines, membrane oxygenators, and devices that made open-heart surgery possible. His work shifted medicine from treating symptoms to engineering solutions that could temporarily, or permanently, replace failing organs.
In 1967, Kolff moved to the University of Utah, where he led the Institute for Biomedical Engineering and the Division of Artificial Organs. Under his supervision, the world’s first permanent artificial heart was implanted in 1982. Although the patient lived only four months, the heart itself continued to function until the end. This proved that the technology was possible and launched decades of progress in heart-assist devices.
Kolff believed deeply in collaborative research. Scientists
from around the world came to work in his lab, and many leaders in biomedical
engineering today trace their training directly back to him. Even after
retiring, he continued working well into his 80s, publishing hundreds of papers
and mentoring new generations of researchers.
Willem Kolff showed that engineering can be an act of
compassion. He didn’t invent machines because they were cool. He built them to
give people more time, better health, and a chance at ordinary life. His work
reminds us that biomedical engineering is about creativity, teamwork, and using
science to solve deeply human problems.
More Info
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2676591/
https://www.nae.edu/27676/Dr-Willem-J-Kolff
https://www.invent.org/inductees/willem-j-kolff
Born: February 14, 1911
Died: February 11, 2009
Family: Married Janke Huidekoper, in 1937. Five children.
Education: MD, University of Leiden Medical School (1938); PhD, University of Groningen (1946)
Known for: Inventing the kidney dialysis machine and pioneering artificial organs, including the artificial heart
Kolff’s first dialysis machine was built during World War II using “orange-juice cans, used auto parts, and sausage casings,” and it became the starting point for a treatment that now saves millions of lives every year.
