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Willem Johan Kolff was born in Leiden, The Netherlands, on 14 February 1911. His father, Jacob Kolff, was a doctor and Director of the Tuberculosis Sanatorium at Beekbergen, and Willem followed in his father's footsteps by studying medicine. After graduating from the University of Leiden Medical School in 1938 he went on to postgraduate research at the University of Groningen, receiving a PhD summa cum laude in 1946.

Among his patients in Groningen was 22-year old Jan Bruning, who was dying slowly and painfully from kidney disease. The young Dr Kolff realised that if he could remove the toxins gradually building up in the young man's blood, which would normally be removed by the kidneys, he could be kept alive - but there was no technology available at the time to accomplish such a task. "I felt helpless telling his poor mother there was nothing we could do for him" wrote Dr Kolff many years later. This was the trigger that started Dr Kolff experimenting with a device that could temporarily replace the kidney in removing urea and other excretory products from the body.

Dr Kolff moved to Kampen when The Netherlands was occupied in 1941 - to avoid working under a Nazi director - and continued his research, often under cover of darkness to avoid drawing attention to his work. Materials were scarce, but Kolff was resourceful and inventive. When aluminium became unobtainable he switched to wood for his early prototypes, and he had the foresight to stock up on one item before the Nazis arrived: sausage casings, which were made of cellophane and could be used as membranes to filter the toxins from the blood.

Though his first patient died long before the first artificial kidney was ready for testing, the time came in September 1945 when, after a series of failures, it saved its first life: that of Sofie Schafstadt, a Nazi sympathiser, to the outrage of many of Kolff's fellow countrymen.

In 1950 Dr Kolff and his family (he had married Janke Huidekoper in 1937) emigrated to the United States of America. He started his new life in The Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, where he became Head of the Department of Artificial Organs and Professor of Clinical Investigation. In America he continued to improve the design of the artificial kidney but also broadened his research to look at heart-lung machines and artificial hearts, the first of which was implanted in an animal in 1957.

In 1958 Dr Kolff was invited to give a lecture to the employees of Membrana GmbH in Wuppertal, Germany - this was shortly after Membrana introduced CUPROPHAN®, the first membrane specifically for use in renal patients, first in flat and then in capillary form. It was the beginning of a long collaboration, which has recently been renewed.

Dr Kolff moved to Utah in 1967 to become Director of the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, which under his leadership became one of the leading artificial organ research centres in the world. It was here, in Salt Lake City in 1982, that Barney Clark became the first recipient of an artificial heart. Dr Kolff also headed up teams developing artificial eyes, hearing, arms and the subcutaneous peritoneal access device.

Dr Kolff officially 'retired' in 1986 on his 75th birthday. However, now in his 90s, and despite failing eyesight, Dr Kolff has not stopped working: his current project is to develop a wearable artificial lung.

He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Amory prize in 1947, the designation as one of the USA's top ten physicians in 1964, The Valentine Medal and Award in 1969 for his 'outstanding contributions to the field of urology'. He joined Lister, Pasteur and other medical giants in 1964 when he was awarded the Cameron Prize for Practical Therapeutics by Edinburgh University. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands made him Commander in the Order of Oranje-Nassau, the highest tribute for accomplishment in the field of science in that country. Dr Kolff by this time had become an American citizen, and it was the first time this rank had been bestowed on anyone living in the USA.

Dr Kolff's most recent honour is the Lasker Award (often referred to as the US equivalent of the Nobel Prize). In early 2003 he will receive the Russ Award from the Academy of Engineers, with a monetary prize of $500,000. This, not surprisingly, will be used to continue his research.

He now lives in Pennsylvania.
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