Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/","20170606030335","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1496718215"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content=""I wanted to make an artificial kidney that would save people. I was convinced that I could do it, and I clung to it until it was done." When Willem Johan Kolff began work on the artificial kidney, few medical professionals believed such a thing was possible. To draw a patient's blood, cleanse it of toxins, and return it to the patient, seemed beyond the expertise of the most sophisticated medical centers. Dr. Kolff had no great resources to draw on. He was the sole internist in a small-town hospital in the middle of an occupied country during wartime. All materials were in short supply and local manufacturers were forbidden to do business with anyone but the occupying army. The first 15 patients to receive the treatment failed to recover, but Dr. Kolff persevered. The dialysis treatment he pioneered has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, all over the world. Dr. Kolff went on to design the heart/lung machine that made open-heart surgery possible. He has pioneered artificial eyes, ears and arms, and for 25 years led the effort to develop the artificial heart. In 1982, a heart designed under his supervision was successfully implanted in Barney Clark, an event that captured the imagination of the world."/> <meta name="robots" content="noodp"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">"I wanted to make an artificial kidney that would save people. I was convinced that I could do it, and I clung to it until it was done."</p> <p class="inputText">When Willem Johan Kolff began work on the artificial kidney, few medical professionals believed such a thing was possible. To draw a patient's blood, cleanse it of toxins, and return it to the patient, seemed beyond the expertise of the most sophisticated medical centers. Dr. Kolff had no great resources to draw on. He was the sole internist in a small-town hospital in the middle of an occupied country during wartime. All materials were in short supply and local manufacturers were forbidden to do business with anyone but the occupying army. The first 15 patients to receive the treatment failed to recover, but Dr. Kolff persevered. The dialysis treatment he pioneered has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, all over the world.</p> <p class="inputText">Dr. Kolff went on to design the heart/lung machine that made open-heart surgery possible. He has pioneered artificial eyes, ears and arms, and for 25 years led the effort to develop the artificial heart. In 1982, a heart designed under his supervision was successfully implanted in Barney Clark, an event that captured the imagination of the world.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">"I wanted to make an artificial kidney that would save people. I was convinced that I could do it, and I clung to it until it was done."</p> <p class="inputText">When Willem Johan Kolff began work on the artificial kidney, few medical professionals believed such a thing was possible. To draw a patient's blood, cleanse it of toxins, and return it to the patient, seemed beyond the expertise of the most sophisticated medical centers. Dr. Kolff had no great resources to draw on. He was the sole internist in a small-town hospital in the middle of an occupied country during wartime. All materials were in short supply and local manufacturers were forbidden to do business with anyone but the occupying army. The first 15 patients to receive the treatment failed to recover, but Dr. Kolff persevered. The dialysis treatment he pioneered has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, all over the world.</p> <p class="inputText">Dr. Kolff went on to design the heart/lung machine that made open-heart surgery possible. He has pioneered artificial eyes, ears and arms, and for 25 years led the effort to develop the artificial heart. In 1982, a heart designed under his supervision was successfully implanted in Barney Clark, an event that captured the imagination of the world.</p>"/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Willem J. 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data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-Feature-Image-2800x1120-380x152.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1400x560.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Father of Artificial Organs</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-2632 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-surgeon-medical-doctor"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">The exciting thing is to see somebody who is doomed to die, live and be happy.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Pioneer of Biomedical Engineering</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 14, 1911 </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Death</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 11, 2009 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_29131" style="width: 1015px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29131 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeride.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29131 size-full lazyload" alt="Free ride is given to young Willem Kolff by two of his brothers in their backyard at Beek-bergen. Kolff was born in Leyden in 1911." width="1015" height="811" data-sizes="(max-width: 1015px) 100vw, 1015px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeride.jpg 1015w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeride-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeride-760x607.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeride.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Young Willem Kolff is given a ride by two of his brothers in their backyard at Beek-bergen in the Netherlands.</figcaption></figure><p>Willem Kolff was born in Leiden in the Netherlands. Kolff’s father was a physician, and young Willem decided at an early age to follow in his footsteps. He began his medical studies at the University of Leiden (one of the oldest in Europe) in 1930. From 1934 to 1936, he worked as an assistant in the pathological anatomy department of the university.</p> <p>After receiving his M.D. in 1938, Kolff began postgraduate studies at the University of Groningen, and served as an assistant in the university’s medical department. It was here that Kolff first became interested in the possibility of artificially simulating the function of the kidney, to remove toxins from the blood of patients with uremia, or kidney failure. He found a sympathetic mentor in Professor Polak Daniels, chief of the medical department at Groningen.</p> <figure id="attachment_29125" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29125 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29125 lazyload" alt="In 1943, Kolff developed the first crude artificial kidney. Working with wooden drums, cellophane tubing, and laundry tubs, Kolff constructed an apparatus that drew the patient's blood, cleansed it of impurities, and pumped it back into the patient. (Museum Boerhaave)" width="2280" height="2293" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier-378x380.jpg 378w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier-756x760.jpg 756w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">In 1943, Kolff developed the first crude artificial kidney. Working with wooden drums and laundry tubs, Kolff built an apparatus that drew the patient’s blood, cleansed it of impurities, and then pumped it back into the patient.</figcaption></figure><p>When Germany attacked the Netherlands in 1940, Kolff founded the first blood bank on the continent of Europe. When the Dutch defenses collapsed, Professor Daniels and his wife committed suicide. Unwilling to serve under the Nazi appointed by the Germans to replace his mentor, Kolff moved to the small town of Kampen, to work in the town’s municipal hospital. It was here, in 1943, that Kolff developed the first crude artificial kidney.</p> <p>Working with wooden drums, cellophane tubing, and laundry tubs, Kolff constructed an apparatus that drew the patient’s blood, cleansed it of impurities, and pumped it back into the patient. The first 15 patients lived no more than a few days on Kolff’s machines. Kolff was not discouraged, however, because he was able to give a few more days of consciousness to comatose men and women on the point of death. Having crossed this barrier, he knew he would eventually be able to prolong a patient’s life even longer.</p> <figure id="attachment_29133" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29133 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-514948744.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29133 size-full lazyload" alt="March 5, 1950: A cellophane tube containing human blood passes through a salt bath mixture in this new artificial kidney at Cleveland Clinic. Its developer, Dr. William J. Kolff, is the Dutch doctor who recently had joined the staff at the clinic. Looking on are Dr. Irvine H. Page, Research Director, and Dr. A. C. Corcoran, Assistant Research Director." width="2280" height="2854" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-514948744.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-514948744-304x380.jpg 304w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-514948744-607x760.jpg 607w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-514948744.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">March 5, 1950: A cellophane tube containing human blood passes through a salt bath mixture in this new artificial kidney at Cleveland Clinic. Its developer, Dr. William J. Kolff, is the Dutch doctor who recently had joined the staff at the clinic. Looking on are Dr. Irvine H. Page, Research Director, and Dr. A. C. Corcoran, Asst. Research Director.</figcaption></figure><p>Kolff got his chance in 1945 when a woman in Kampen, a hated Nazi collaborator, was brought to him for treatment. Many people in the town urged him to let the woman die, but Kolff did not consider it his place as a doctor to determine who should live or die. His hemodialysis treatment saved the woman’s life, and he continued his development of dialysis machines.</p> <p>In the years immediately following the war, he shipped free dialysis machines to researchers in England, Canada and the United States, completed his post-graduate work at Groningen — receiving his Ph.D. in internal medicine — continued his duties in Kampen, and lectured at the University of Leiden.</p> <figure id="attachment_29126" style="width: 1782px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29126 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29126 size-full lazyload" alt="1966: Kolff and his team in Cleveland. After the war, in 1950, Dr. Kolff and his family came to the United States to join the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio as a researcher. At Cleveland, he turned to the study of cardiovascular problems and built one of the first heart/lung machines, a device that made open-heart surgery possible for the first time. He also improved his dialysis machine." width="1782" height="1386" data-sizes="(max-width: 1782px) 100vw, 1782px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24.jpg 1782w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24-380x296.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24-760x591.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1966: Kolff and his team in Cleveland. After the war, in 1950, Dr. Kolff and his family came to the United States to join the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio as a researcher. At Cleveland, he turned to the study of cardiovascular problems and built one of the first heart/lung machines, a device that made open-heart surgery possible for the first time.</figcaption></figure><p>In 1950, he was invited to join the research staff of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and emigrated to the United States. He became a U.S. citizen in 1956. At the Cleveland Clinic, Kolff turned to the study of cardiovascular problems and built one of the first heart/lung apparatuses. This device made open-heart surgery possible for the first time.</p> <p>In 1955, he attended the first convention of the American Society for Artificial Organs. He now turned his attention to the development of an implantable artificial heart. In 1957, he implanted an artificial heart into a dog, which survived for 90 minutes. Kolff believed he was on the right track, although serious medical journals and societies would not accept articles on the subject of implantable artificial organs. By 1961 he had designed an intra-aortic balloon pump for cases of acute myocardial distress. Within a few years, this device was in widespread use.</p> <figure id="attachment_29123" style="width: 1947px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29123 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/06-Ms0654_notes-Willem-Kolff-Papers.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29123 lazyload" alt="The Willem Johan Kolff papers (http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv39526) contain materials that record the many artificial organ projects, from early dialysis to the first artificial heart implant, as well as the personal life of one of the world’s most respected pioneering doctors. In 1950, Dr. Kolff and his family immigrated to the United States, where he began working in the Research Department and the Department of Surgery of the Cleveland Clinic. He worked on the artificial kidney, the heart-lung machine, and invented the total artificial heart in 1957, one year after becoming a United States citizen. He became Scientific Director of Cleveland’s Artificial Organ program, then moved to Utah in 1967 to direct the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. At the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Kolff was in charge of teams working on artificial kidneys, artificial hearing, the artificial eye, artificial arm, the subcutaneous peritoneal access device, and the artificial heart. In 1982 Dr. Barney Clark received the first “permanent artificial heart” implanted in a human. This event made the University of Utah known throughout the world as the leader in artificial organ research. Dr. Kolff has received more than a hundred awards, among these the prestigious Japan Prize in 1986. He has published more than six hundred articles. Dr. Kolff was Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Surgery, and Research Professor of Engineering, and Director of his Lab, where he worked to perfect the artificial heart. This amazing collection, consisting of 708 boxes, is available to the public. Please contact Special Collection at 801-581-8863 for more information. (Betsy Welland) (J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah)" width="1947" height="1501" data-sizes="(max-width: 1947px) 100vw, 1947px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/06-Ms0654_notes-Willem-Kolff-Papers.jpg 1947w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/06-Ms0654_notes-Willem-Kolff-Papers-380x293.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/06-Ms0654_notes-Willem-Kolff-Papers-760x586.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/06-Ms0654_notes-Willem-Kolff-Papers.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Willem Kolff moved to Utah in 1967 to direct the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. At the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Kolff was in charge of teams working on artificial kidneys, artificial hearing, the artificial eye, artificial arm, the subcutaneous peritoneal access device, and the artificial heart. Dr. Kolff was Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Surgery, and Research Professor of Engineering, and Director of his Lab, where he worked to perfect the artificial heart. (Betsy Welland, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah)</figcaption></figure><p>In 1967, Kolff moved to the University of Utah as professor of surgery in the medical school, as research professor in the engineering school and as director of the Institute for Biomedical Engineering. Over the opposition of many physicians, Dr. Kolff wanted to give the patient more control of the process, so patients could perform their dialysis at home, without a doctor’s supervision. In 1975, he introduced the Wearable Artificial Kidney, an eight-pound chest pack with an 18-pound auxiliary tank.</p> <figure id="attachment_29134" style="width: 800px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29134 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-611391399.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29134 size-full lazyload" alt="1982: Dr. William DeVries, surgeon who performed the first permanent artificial heart transplant on a human patient circa 1982. DeVries was a first-year medical student and one of the first research assistants hired by Kolff when he began his artificial heart program in Utah in 1967. (Photo by Images Press/IMAGES/Getty Images)" width="800" height="1187" data-sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-611391399.jpg 800w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-611391399-256x380.jpg 256w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-611391399-512x760.jpg 512w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-611391399.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1982: Dr. William DeVries, surgeon who performed the first permanent artificial heart transplant on a human patient, Barney Clark. DeVries was a first-year medical student and one of the first research assistants hired by Kolff when he began his artificial heart program in Utah in 1967. (Photo by Images Press/IMAGES/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p>At the same time, Dr. Kolff continued his work on the artificial heart. With one of his students, Dr. Robert Jarvik, and a veterinary surgeon, Dr. Don Olsen, Kolff developed a series of progressively more efficient mechanical hearts. One of these, the Jarvik-5 mechanical heart, was implanted in a calf, which survived for 268 days with the device. In 1981, Kolff applied to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to attempt implantation in a human subject.</p> <p>On December 2, 1982, a team of surgeons at the university, led by Dr. William DeVries, implanted the Jarvik-7 artificial heart into Barney Clark, a 61-year-old retired dentist. Clark required three subsequent operations to adjust the device and replace a defective valve but, when he died, almost four months later, it was due to the failure of his other organs. The Jarvik-7 was still functioning acceptably when Dr. Clark died. The publicity surrounding the operation and Dr. Clark’s subsequent progress made him a celebrity and focused international interest on Dr. Kolff’s research.</p> <figure id="attachment_29138" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29138 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-AP8604190242.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29138 lazyload" alt="April 19, 1986: Dr. Willem Johan Kolff, 75, professor of medical and biomedical engineering at the University of Utah, delivers his speech at a reception for Japan Prize Winners at a Tokyo hotel. Dr. Kolff was cited for his development of the artificial kidney in 1943 and his work on other manmade organs. Japanese Crown Prince Akihito is seen at second from right in the foreground. (AP Photo/Tsugufumi Matsumoto)" width="2280" height="1494" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-AP8604190242.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-AP8604190242-380x249.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-AP8604190242-760x498.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-AP8604190242.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">April 19, 1986: Dr. Willem Johan Kolff, 75, professor of medical and biomedical engineering at the University of Utah, delivers his speech at a reception for Japan Prize Winners at a Tokyo hotel. Dr. Kolff was cited for his development of the artificial kidney in 1943 and his work on other manmade organs. (AP Photo/Matsumoto)</figcaption></figure><p>Although the increased success rate of human heart transplants has reduced interest in artificial hearts for the time being, Dr. Kolff’s accomplishment remains unparalleled. Over his long career, he published more than 600 papers and articles, and numerous books, including <em>Artificial Organs.</em> He was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 1985, and in 1990 was named by <em>Life</em> magazine in its list of the 100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century.</p> <figure id="attachment_29141" style="width: 2100px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29141 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KOLFF1.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29141 size-full lazyload" alt="February 18, 2003: For his pioneering work on artificial organs, Willem J. Kolff was awarded the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize — a $500,000 award recognizing outstanding achievement in engineering. The National Academy of Engineering presented the honor at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C." width="2100" height="1424" data-sizes="(max-width: 2100px) 100vw, 2100px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KOLFF1.jpg 2100w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KOLFF1-380x258.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KOLFF1-760x515.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KOLFF1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">February 18, 2003: For his pioneering work on artificial organs, Willem J. Kolff was awarded the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize — a $500,000 award recognizing outstanding achievements in medicine and biomedical engineering.</figcaption></figure><p>Willem Kolff retired in 1997, after 30 years at the University of Utah. In September 2002, Dr. Kolff received the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, the highest honor in American medicine. The award committee cited Dr. Kolff for “the development of renal hemodialysis, which changed kidney failure from a fatal to a treatable disease, prolonging the useful lives of millions of patients.” He died at his home in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, a few days before his 98th birthday.</p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 1971 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.surgeon-medical-doctor">Surgeon/Medical Doctor</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 14, 1911 </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Death</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 11, 2009 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">“I wanted to make an artificial kidney that would save people. I was convinced that I could do it, and I clung to it until it was done.”</p> <p class="inputText">When Willem Johan Kolff began work on the artificial kidney, few medical professionals believed such a thing was possible. To draw a patient’s blood, cleanse it of toxins, and return it to the patient, seemed beyond the expertise of the most sophisticated medical centers. Dr. Kolff had no great resources to draw on. He was the sole internist in a small-town hospital in the middle of an occupied country during wartime. All materials were in short supply and local manufacturers were forbidden to do business with anyone but the occupying army. The first 15 patients to receive the treatment failed to recover, but Dr. Kolff persevered. The dialysis treatment he pioneered has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, all over the world.</p> <p class="inputText">Dr. Kolff went on to design the heart/lung machine that made open-heart surgery possible. He has pioneered artificial eyes, ears and arms, and for 25 years led the effort to develop the artificial heart. In 1982, a heart designed under his supervision was successfully implanted in Barney Clark, an event that captured the imagination of the world.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/aTXe7RKCRvM?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=4084&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_17_34_24.Still015-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_17_34_24.Still015-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Pioneer of Biomedical Engineering</h2> <div class="sans-2">Salt Lake City, Utah</div> <div class="sans-2">November 15, 1991</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, the process of renal dialysis — the artificial kidney — was one of your first major accomplishments. When did you begin work on this?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: It was not the first thing, but it was the first really important thing.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/k8SHZ5EeeZo?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_37_20_18.Still019-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_37_20_18.Still019-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>When I was this young assistant at the University of Groningen my responsibility was for four beds, or rather the patients in four beds. That was all I had to do. And, one of these patients was a young man, 22 years old, who slowly and miserably died from renal failure. He became blind, he vomited, and it was a miserable death. And I, as a very, very young physician, had to tell his mother, in a black dress and a little white cap like the farmers have, that her only son was going to die. I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. So, I began to think, “If I could just every day remove as much urea as this boy creates, which is about 20 grams, then the boy could live.” Well, he died, but I began to work on that.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>When I was at Groningen, I got interested in blood transfusions. I was the first in the Netherlands — and probably on the continent of Europe — to apply blood by continuous drip. It was not my invention; it was done first in England.</p> <figure id="attachment_29144" style="width: 1494px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29144 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-2.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29144 lazyload" alt="1941: Four rotating drum kidneys made during the war and during German occupation in the Netherlands. Taken in the garden of the hospital in Kampen. During the war they were hidden in different places to keep them from being destroyed." width="1494" height="1482" data-sizes="(max-width: 1494px) 100vw, 1494px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-2.jpg 1494w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-2-380x377.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-2-760x754.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1941: Four rotating drum kidneys made during World War II while the Germans occupied the Netherlands. This photo was taken in the garden of the hospital in Kampen. They were hidden to keep them from being destroyed.</figcaption></figure><p>When I came to the University of Groningen, you had the donor lying there, and the recipient next to him, and you pumped blood from one to the other. But I introduced these drips, in the Netherlands. And then it became apparent that you needed to store blood. That led me to read about the blood bank in Chicago.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/L2aKeevLazs?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_27_26_12.Still016-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_27_26_12.Still016-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>When the war broke out I happened to be in the city of The Hague, for the funeral of my wife’s grandfather. That morning of the funeral the German planes came overhead and they threw out leaflets that the Dutch should surrender, and they bombed the barracks, and so on and so on. And, instead of going to the funeral, I went to the main hospital, where I had been before, and I said, “Do you have a blood bank?” And they said, “No.” And I said, “Do you want me to set one up?” They said, “Yes.” And they gave me an automobile with a soldier in front because there were snipers, and they gave me purchase orders so that I could go to every store in the city and buy whatever I had to. And, in four days time I had a blood bank ready. That was my first major thing with blood. That blood bank is still in existence.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>Some of these circumstances changed the whole direction of your work and your life.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yes. Having handled blood outside the body made dialysis less difficult for me.</p> <figure id="attachment_29129" style="width: 608px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29129 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/atkampen.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29129 size-full lazyload" alt="1941: At Kampen during Nazi occupation, Dr. Kolff snatches a moment of relaxation with his wife, Janke." width="608" height="871" data-sizes="(max-width: 608px) 100vw, 608px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/atkampen.jpg 608w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/atkampen-265x380.jpg 265w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/atkampen-531x760.jpg 531w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/atkampen.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1941: At Kampen, Netherlands during Nazi occupation, Dr. Kolff in a moment of relaxation with his wife, Janke.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>How did you come to leave the University of Groningen for a small city like Kampen?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I didn’t want to stay at Groningen because the Germans put a National Socialist (Nazi) at the head of the department. I stayed just long enough to get my certificate as an internist, a specialist in internal medicine. The night before this National Socialist appointed by the Germans came in, I left. I never saw him alive.</p> <p>Then I had to look for a place, and I found one in Kampen. It was a very small hospital. They were very nice to me. They wanted to have an internist, and I was the first. I made the royal sum of 10,000 guilders per year in the first year. Divide that by two and a half, and you have the number of dollars that I made. I said, “Now I can afford to make an artificial kidney.”</p> <p>Professor Brinkman at Groningen was the man who first told me about cellophane and dialysis. Brinkman was a wonderful man, and he knew cellophane. Cellophane tubing looks like ribbon, but it’s hollow. It’s artificial sausage skin, and it’s an excellent dialyzer. Dialysis means that if you have blood inside here, small molecules will go through the pores of the membrane to the outside where you have the dialyzing fluid. So urea and other products that the kidneys normally excrete will go out.</p> <p>And another thing happens. Sodium chloride and other electrolytes will also go out. So, you add them to the dialyzing fluid on the outside, and they go out and in, and you get an equilibration through this membrane. If the sodium is too low, it goes higher; if it’s too high, it goes lower. This normalizes the electrolytes in the blood plasma. The treatment with the artificial kidney is relatively simple.</p> <figure id="attachment_29142" style="width: 1998px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29142 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-1.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29142 size-full lazyload" alt="Circa 1941-43: Nurse Maria ter Welle modeling first artificial kidney in Netherlands." width="1998" height="1216" data-sizes="(max-width: 1998px) 100vw, 1998px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-1.jpg 1998w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-1-380x231.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-1-760x463.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1943: Nurse Maria modeling the first artificial kidney, which revolutionized kidney dialysis, in the Netherlands.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>You didn’t succeed the first time you tried to figure out a solution to this, did you?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: No, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to use dialysis to remove urea and other products that are excreted by the kidney. I filled a small piece of cellophane tubing, about 40 centimeters long, with blood. I added urea to it, I shook it up and down in a bath with saline, and from this I could calculate that I needed ten meters of this stuff, and that the blood had to be continuously in motion, and the dialyzing fluid also in motion. I also had Heparin to prevent clotting. All I had to do was to make a machine with sufficient surface area to make it worthwhile, and that’s what I did.</p> <p>I went to see the director of the enamel factory. I got him interested, and he helped me. That was the first rotating drum artificial kidney. When it came time to pay the enamel factory, it turned out that the Germans did not allow any Dutch company to work for anybody else but the German Wehrmacht — that’s the army — so they never could give me a bill, and I never paid for it.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/8c2dk1hk5qQ?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_56_25_09.Still027-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_56_25_09.Still027-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I had one patient with chronic renal failure that was in 1943, during the war. And, I dialyzed one-half liter of blood, and had it run through that artificial kidney and gave it back to her. And then waited two days to see if anything terrible would happen. Nothing happened. So I then took a little more blood, and so on. By that way, at that time, if either an institutional review committee for research on human patients — or the FDA — had been breathing down my neck, the artificial kidney would never have been made. Never.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>You mean you worked in circumstances that allowed you to do this.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yes, before the FDA was in existence and before IRBs (Institutional Review Boards). My conscience was my only brake. Otherwise, I could do what I wanted. But I had to explain to the patient what I was going to do, and I always did.</p> <figure id="attachment_29128" style="width: 1186px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29128 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-2.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29128 size-full lazyload" alt="1974: Willem Kolff with Roma Proctor, a woman who received an artificial kidney. The calf had an artificial heart inside his chest for 37 days when this picture was taken. The calf had since broken all existing records of survival. (Willem J. Kolff Collection at the University of Utah Marriott Library)" width="1186" height="967" data-sizes="(max-width: 1186px) 100vw, 1186px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-2.jpg 1186w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-2-380x310.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-2-760x620.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1974: Willem Kolff with Roma Proctor, a woman who received an artificial kidney. The calf had an artificial heart inside his chest for 37 days when this picture was taken. The calf had since broken all existing records of survival.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Dr. Kolff, can you tell us about the first patients you treated with dialysis?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Of the first 15 patients I treated with dialysis in Kampen, only one survived. And that one might have survived if I had used another sequence of treatment, without the artificial kidney.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/BJqCkdacOxY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_10_40_11.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_10_40_11.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Sophia Schafstad was the first patient where you can honestly say she would have died had she not been treated with dialysis. And she was in a prison right after the war, for collaborating with the Germans and many of my fellow countrymen would have liked to wring her neck. And, she was brought to us in renal failure. My duty is not to wring her neck, but to treat her. And we treated her. She was comatose when she came in. And after so many hours of treatment I bent over her and said, “Mrs. Schafstad, can you hear me?” And she slowly opened her eyes and said, “I’m going to divorce my husband,” and she did.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>This woman was a National Socialist, and when I talked about her a few months later in London, I said, “It’s now been proven that the artificial kidney can save a life, but it’s not been proven that it’s of any real use to society.” The moral is that we have to treat patients when they need help, even if we don’t like them.</p> <p>I’ve been mortally opposed to the so-called life-and-death committees that were instituted. When there were many more patients that needed to be dialyzed, and not enough artificial kidneys available, you had the institution of the life-and-death committees. You had a medical committee, and the first question they asked is, “Is this patient an emotionally mature adult?” If he was not, he didn’t qualify. And the next question was to the lay committee, in which sat two cleaning women, a minister, a banker, a union leader, and a lawyer. This lay committee had such questions as, “Does he go to church? Does he give to the community chest? Is he employed? Does he have children? Is he divorced?” Depending on the answer to these questions, he could be dialyzed. Otherwise, he could go to hell. I’ve been mortally opposed to that. When I set up a dialysis center here with a grant from some government agency, I was forced to put in a life-and-death committee, but it never met.</p> <p><strong>How was the artificial kidney received? Was there criticism? How did you handle it?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/82RgqV7gcs4?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_37_17_29.Still018-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_37_17_29.Still018-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Willem Kolff: When the artificial kidney had become in my eyes a reality that did not mean that the medical profession was going to say, “Hurrah! Now we have something!” And, there were some that were receptive, there were many more that thought that the idea to have blood outside somebody’s body was a horrible idea, and they did whatever they could to prevent using the artificial kidney, and some of them wrote articles that said the artificial kidney was not needed. I’ve done one very good thing. I have never responded to any of those articles, for the simple reason that I had seen the improvement in patients so clearly that if I could just keep going, and have a few other people do it too, I would win.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_29147" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29147 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/US3902490-2.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29147 size-full lazyload" alt="September 2, 1975: United States Patent for Portable Artificial Kidney System. Inventors: Stephen C. Jacobsen; Clifford Kwan-Gett; Willem J. Kolff, all of University of Utah, Salt Lake City." width="2280" height="1672" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/US3902490-2.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/US3902490-2-380x279.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/US3902490-2-760x557.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/US3902490-2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">September 2, 1975: United States Patent for Portable Artificial Kidney System. Inventors: Stephen C. Jacobsen; Clifford Kwan-Gett; Willem J. Kolff, all of University of Utah, Salt Lake City. (The Dr. Willem Johan Kolff Papers)</figcaption></figure><p>If I had responded to unreasonable criticism, I would have made a lot of enemies. I would have become a paranoiac probably. Fortunately, I did not. On the other hand, when somebody tries to prevent me from doing something I want to do, I will do whatever I can to do it anyway.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/uFQfQxl2qdQ?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.01_00_52_01.Still028-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.01_00_52_01.Still028-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Maybe I should show you now how much urea I have at one time removed from one patient. There was a patient who was comatose, absolutely comatose. He was a big man. And, this white powder is urea, and all this urea was removed in one dialysis, which is incredible, isn’t it? It goes very fast. And, in the beginning there were always people that said, “Well, urea is not toxic.” I would say, “Eat it, and see how you feel.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>How did you begin development of the blood oxygenator for the heart/lung machine?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: We had seen in the artificial kidney that blood that was blue when it came in became red. So it was an oxygenator. It took up oxygen from the air. I began to make oxygenators. Blood oxygenators are used in heart/lung machines. That hospital (in Kampen) was too small for open-heart surgery. So I went to the United States, and one of the reasons why I left was that I had to be in a hospital large enough to have a cardiac surgical department. When I came here it was marvelous, three excellent heart/lung machines, but nobody in the United States was interested. I had to wait five years before the heart surgeon began to realize that he could not do all the surgery blindly.</p> <figure id="attachment_29127" style="width: 1389px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29127 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-1.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29127 lazyload" alt="Dr. Willem J. Kolff, in the 1980s at his University of Utah lab, displaying an artificial heart, a version of which is still in use. (University of Utah, Marriott Library)" width="1389" height="1191" data-sizes="(max-width: 1389px) 100vw, 1389px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-1.jpg 1389w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-1-380x326.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-1-760x652.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Kolff, in the 1980s at his University of Utah lab, displaying an artificial heart, a version of which is still in use.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>How do you sustain yourself during that time when you’re far ahead and you’re all alone?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/QtspYO3NENI?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_05_04_16.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_05_04_16.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Willem Kolff: The first years in Cleveland were very, very difficult. Fortunately, I have many interests, so if I cannot make progress with the heart/lung machine, I can improve the artificial kidney. And I can also then begin this kidney transplantation, and that’s what we did. At that time when we entered the field of kidney transplantation, people did not use cadaver kidneys anymore. And, we proved that if we would take a cadaver kidney, put it in a patient without kidneys and dialyze them with one of these machines, that we could keep them alive long enough so that the cadaver kidney would recover from the rigors it had gone through when its previous owner died. That was very important, and also very fascinating and very beneficial.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>Dr. Kolff, your work on the artificial heart attracted so much attention and discussion. Is it because of the old idea that a person’s heart is where their soul is?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yes. The heart, as you know, is the symbol of love, the habitat of the soul, and the source of life. To replace that by a simple pump goes against everybody’s feeling. People are also afraid that if they have an artificial heart maybe they can’t love anymore. We had Barney Clark to prove the opposite. We knew that the artificial heart could sustain the circulation, because we’d seen it in animals many times. But Barney Clark proved that the artificial heart did not cause any pain, did not cause any disagreeable sensation. The click-click noise of the pump did not bother him. He still loved his family, he still had a very considerable sense of humor, and he still wanted to serve his fellow man. So all the essential things of the human mind were preserved. That’s Barney Clark.</p> <figure id="attachment_29122" style="width: 998px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29122 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Ms0654_molds.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29122 size-full lazyload" alt="The Willem Johan Kolff papers (1935-2009) contain materials that record the many artificial organ projects, from early dialysis to the first artificial heart implant, as well as the personal life of one of the world's most respected pioneering doctors. Kolff was a distinguished professor of surgery at the University of Utah, a medical researcher specializing in artificial organs, and a developer of the first permanent artificial heart implanted in a human (1982). (Repository University of Utah Libraries, Special Collections. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library)" width="998" height="1227" data-sizes="(max-width: 998px) 100vw, 998px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Ms0654_molds.jpg 998w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Ms0654_molds-309x380.jpg 309w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Ms0654_molds-618x760.jpg 618w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Ms0654_molds.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Kolff was a distinguished professor of surgery at the University of Utah, a medical researcher specializing in artificial organs, and a developer of the first permanent artificial heart, which was implanted in a human in 1982. A Seattle dentist named Barney Clark, became the first human recipient of a permanent artificial heart and survived for 112 days. The artificial heart, the Jarvik-7, was designed by Dr. Kolff and Robert Jarvik. (J.W. Marriott Library)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Dr. Kolff, what are your memories of the Barney Clark surgery?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/YlW-0wGocFw?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_34_40_12.Still017-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_34_40_12.Still017-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Willem Kolff: When that heart was put in Barney Clark, when it worked, I remember that I cried for a moment because I had started to work on the artificial heart in 1957, and this was 1982. So, you have to have some staying power if you do this kind of stuff. And then the publicity around it was incredible. They had to cordon off one-half of the hospital cafeteria, and there were seven television teams, if I’m correct and about a hundred reporters who camped there day and night. And, some of them tried to bribe personnel to give them information. When that became apparent, the vice president of medicine of the university gave a press release twice a day. Even then, reporters tried to get information from a resident, or a nurse, or a cleaning woman, or a janitor. So, don’t ever underestimate the enormous pressure that was on the people who put the heart in Barney Clark. Dr. DeVries, particularly, the surgeon, and others, including myself. Whatever happened during those days, I will forgive anybody, because the pressure was almost unbearable. When Barney Clark finally died after 112 days and we went to his funeral, there were helicopters overhead to film it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_29136" style="width: 2126px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29136 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kampen.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29136 size-full lazyload" alt="October 2004: The Willem Kolff Foundation brought the two honorary citizens by the city of Kampen on the occasion of the opening of the Kolff Information Centre. On the left is former mayor Henk Kleemans (honorary citizen since 1999), and in the middle is Dr. Willem Kolff (honorary citizen since 1970). Dr. Kolff went to the University of Groningen for his residency in medicine during the German occupation. He started working on the artificial kidney in 1939, and became the first internist at a small hospital in Kampen, where he continued the work on the artificial kidney. The rotating drum kidney was developed in 1941, and by 1955 the twin-coil kidney had led to the possibility of dialysis worldwide. Work on the heart/lung machines began in 1948, and the first membrane oxygenators were used successfully in patients in 1955. (Photo: WKS/Dick Fox)" width="2126" height="1535" data-sizes="(max-width: 2126px) 100vw, 2126px" data-srcset="/web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kampen.jpg 2126w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kampen-380x274.jpg 380w, /web/20170606030335im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kampen-760x549.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kampen.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">October 2004: The Willem Kolff Foundation brought together two honorary citizens of the city of Kampen on the occasion of the opening of the Kolff Information Centre. On the left is the former mayor Henk Kleemans and in the middle is Dr. Willem Kolff. Dr. Kolff went to the University of Groningen for his residency in medicine during the German occupation. He started working on the artificial kidney in 1939, and became the first internist at a small hospital in Kampen, where he continued the work on the artificial kidney. The rotating drum kidney was first developed in 1941, and by 1955 the twin-coil kidney had led to the possibility of dialysis worldwide. Work on the heart/lung machines began in 1948, and the membrane oxygenators were used successfully in patients in 1955.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Dr. Kolff, how would you describe what’s so exciting about the work you do, to someone who doesn’t really know anything about your field of work?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030335if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jm1BC9xXIs8?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_17_34_24.Still015-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Kolff-Willem-1992-MasterEdit.00_17_34_24.Still015-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Willem Kolff: The exciting thing, of course, is not so much what people say about it, but to see somebody who is doomed to die, live and be happy. I got a letter three days ago from a woman who I’ve never seen. And she wrote me, “Dr. Kolff, I’ve been on dialysis for 18 years. You see here a picture of myself with my first grandchild. I’ve had a very rich life, a very full life, and thank you very much.” That is the reward, that of course makes you [feel] very good. And, that also sustains you to not pay too much attention to the detractors of what you’re doing.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, you describe yourself as an inventor. When did you know this is what you were going to do?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: When I was very young I didn’t see myself as an inventor, but I always wanted to make something. So my father allowed me to have lessons from a carpenter for seven years, every Saturday afternoon. In the Netherlands, where I grew up, you have to go to school five and a half days. So Saturday morning you go to school, Saturday afternoon, I worked with the carpenter. I had a great variety of interests. I loved animals. I had rabbits, I had pigeons, I had pheasants. I had a sheep, guinea pigs, and so on. When I was very young I wanted to become the director of a zoo. But my father pointed out that there were only at that time three zoos in the Netherlands. So your chances of becoming a zoo director were pretty small.</p> <p>When I was very young, I didn’t want to become a doctor — my father was a doctor — because I didn’t want to see people die. It’s interesting that, later in my life, the main purpose of most of the machines I have made is to prevent people from dying. I immediately want to say, I don’t want to prolong life when there is misery. I want to prolong it only when it is an enjoyable life.</p> <p><strong>When did you decide to become a doctor? Was there a teacher or someone in your life who encouraged you?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: In my early years it was undoubtedly my father. My father was director of a sanatorium for pulmonary tuberculosis, and at that time there were no antibiotics, tuberculosis was a terrible disease. And, he and I would walk in the woods around that sanatorium and he would discuss his worries about his patients. And from him, I certainly inherited this extreme concern about the well-being of patients. I’ve seen him very happy when he succeeded after months and months of rest and other things to have these people go home cured. I’ve also seen him crying and desperate after trying for a long time and a patient did not get well, and went home to die.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, were there any teachers who had a particular influence on you when you were young?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: In my very early years, no. I had some teachers that I liked, but the people that had a real influence on my life came a little later. During my studies at the University of Leiden, I became an Assistant in Pathological Anatomy. That old professor, whose name was Tenderloo, was a very scientific man. From him I think I learned the power of reasoning, to be critical about what you think and not assume something that may not be true and that is not proven.</p> <p><strong>When you were young did you read a lot? Were you good in school?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: No. I was never very good in school. I had a lot of other interests than school. In the gymnasium — which you would call in the United States high school — it was very difficult. In the Netherlands, where I grew up, you had to learn four modern languages — I’m fluent in four modern languages — and Latin and Greek. You didn’t have electives, you had to take everything. Apart from the later years of German occupation, which were very, very difficult, these high school years were perhaps the most difficult of my life. I was forced to do things that I did not really like to do, but I knew that it was necessary. I knew I would always have one insufficient mark, and I switched them around so that the average at the end of the year was so that would pass to the next class.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, you mention that your high school years were difficult for you. Why was that? Did you not have close friends, or was it the school?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Oh no, I had close friends. I had no social problems. It’s hard for anybody in the United States to realize how difficult and how exacting the program is of the Dutch high schools, certainly at that time. Here they have a little homework. I would have classes — four in the morning, two in the afternoon — and go home with homework for five different things. And, the following morning that had to be completed. And, if in Holland you get French, or English, you don’t have it for one year or so, you have that the next year, too. So it is entirely different, it is very hard. The mortality rate, that means the people that drop out from high school, is very high. They then go to a lower grade school, which does not admit them to the university. But once you get through that high school, then any university would be open. They had in my time no possibility to refuse you.</p> <p><strong>So when you were young, instead of satisfying your curiosity by reading books, you went out into the world and explored.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: That’s right. I have a problem, which is in my family. It’s called alexia or dyslexia. I can spell difficult words, but at this time I cannot tell you whether “always” is spelled with one “l” or two “l’s”. This plagued me a great deal. There was one teacher who I had problems with. Out of all my work in the final examination, he made me accountable for the spelling errors, which I thought was a mean thing to do. I like to read, but I read slowly. I know the literature about artificial kidneys and artificial hearts quite well.</p> <p><strong>So you were punished for your dyslexia.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yeah, and that was a very common thing. At that time, dyslexia was totally unknown. I’ve learned to live with it. I like to have a secretary who can spell, which is difficult to find. I have no further words of wisdom, except that you can learn to live with it. You can overcome it to a great extent by reading and by writing. Some of my brothers had it much more severely. My one brother who has severe dyslexia has been rather successful as a businessman, but he knows his limitations.</p> <p><strong>What advice might you give to a young person who doesn’t get marvelous grades, doesn’t seem superior in the class, but really has this deep desire to achieve something?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Some way or another he should make sure that he passes. In this day and age if they want to amount to anything, they must have an education. In Holland, if you passed the final exam of your high school you automatically could get into a university. Here is it different. If they want to go into medical school, for example, and their grades are not magnificent, let them do something in the community. Let them work in Planned Parenthood, or go to a rehabilitation center, or do a year of research in biology. Try to find something that you’re interested in, that may help you get a little advantage over other students. By the way, the guys with very high grades are not necessarily the people that are the most successful in later life. They may be the ones that can regurgitate gracefully, and they get very high grades. But if the guys that have to work for it and do not have such good grades can do something extra, and prove that they can perform, they may have a chance.</p> <p><strong>What did your parents think when you became an obvious success? Did they expect this of you?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: They were very supportive, and have always been. You could call me somebody who grew up in a privileged situation. Sometimes I think in the United States it’s believed that this is a drawback, that you don’t work as hard, but that’s not necessarily so. When I was a student at the University of Leiden, I belonged to the student club, because my father had belonged to the same student club. I had a man who came in the morning to wake me up and polish my shoes. You lived far above your means. But at that time that was the thing to do, if you could afford it.</p> <p><strong>What happened in your career that you didn’t expect?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Originally, I planned to go to Indonesia. Indonesia at that time was a Dutch colony. I knew a young doctor could go be the head of the Department of Medicine of a large plantation way in the hinterland, and get wonderful experience. You could be independent, and do very much what you wanted, and still help people. That is what I had planned to do. I even followed a course in tropical medicine, but then the war came, and you couldn’t get out. Circumstances have often played an important role.</p> <p><strong>Who gave you your first big break in your career?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I think an important event was when I went to the University of Groningen. I had studied medicine at the University of Leiden. Usually you couldn’t be married and be a resident. But there was one University, with a Jewish Professor, Polak Daniels, who allowed his residents to be married, and live outside the hospital. He didn’t pay me anything, but fortunately my wife had a little money, so we lived in a little house in Groningen.</p> <p>Professor Daniels had one quality which I think is very important. There are some professors who want their students to do exactly what the professor is interested in. This man was different. He set us free, and when I wanted to pursue a certain thing, he would study it and help. All my life I’ve tried to follow that example and, where possible, allow my students to follow their interest. I know where I want to get in the long run, and we don’t go there in a straight line, because these students want to go this way or that way. It takes longer, but it makes their life much more interesting if they can do it their way. Eventually we’ll get where we want to be.</p> <p><strong>Of all the inventions that you’ve explored yourself and that you’ve inspired others to investigate here, I wonder why you think you’ve succeeded in doing this. There are a lot of people out there with brains and potential, but they haven’t been able to make this happen.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: There are a lot of people that are a great deal smarter than I am. So I have to work very hard, but I’m extremely persistent. If I cannot get there one way, I try another way. If I had to give any advice to younger people who want to accomplish something, first try to simplify what you want to do, and see whether or not you can do it. No reason to bump your head against the wall if you don’t see a little hole in it. But if you see a possibility, then take it on. If you cannot get there one way, try another way.</p> <p>Also, be prepared that your new idea will not always be welcome. As a very young assistant at the University of Groningen, when I told the chief assistant that I was going to make an artificial kidney, he became very, very mad. What I should do, he said was just like every other young assistant: Do what he told us. But my old professor listened, and let me do it.</p> <p><strong>It seems that some of the experimentation and some of the thinking that you did in developing this technique was simple.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yeah. Whenever I see a problem, I try to reduce it to simple terms. If the problem is very complicated, then look at whether or not there is a simple component to it. And if that simple component is an important part, then take that first, then you can forget about the other components. Reduce the complicated problem to something that you can understand, and that perhaps you can do something about.</p> <p><strong>Why do you think there has been so much opposition to your work from the medical establishment?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Anything that is new, and that people have not heard about before, that is not according to what they have been taught — either in school or in the university — is by a large number of people received in a negative way. I decided early that I would never — when I hear of something new — be negative until I have heard the full story, and have had the time to look at it.</p> <p>I remember that I was in England — this was right after the war — and the artificial kidney which we had made in occupied Holland opened the world for me. I got invitations. I got an invitation and I met with a wonderful man, a Professor Pickering. He told me about the operation in blue babies where, at the time, you could not repair the defect in the ventricle. They would put blood from the aorta or from the subclavian artery into the lungs, so that more blood would be oxygenated.</p> <p>I remember that my first reaction was negative — I stuck out my tongue — but when Pickering explained to me what was done, I made a decision that never again would my first reaction be negative to something I hadn’t heard about. But this negative reaction is very common. The best thing you can do is not pay attention to it. If you’re young to invent something, if you’re a very young man and you have a good idea, you will find a negative reaction. Stay with what you believe, and pay as little attention to that negative reaction as you can.</p> <p>That’s another thing you must remember. If you’re sufficiently far ahead of the field, you don’t get any support. I remember what Professor Borst in Amsterdam said when he heard that I was going to work on a heart/lung machine. He said, “But Mr. Kolff, this is impossible!” If something is impossible, these guys are not going to give you high grades for your grant proposals, and no money. And if you got to the NIH and you’re sufficiently far ahead, nobody at that table has any sympathy for you.</p> <p><strong>Many of your early experiments and inventions were done with very ordinary materials. I read somewhere that you made something with beer cans.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yeah. I’m glad you brought up that question. This was in 1955. I came to this country in 1950. I began to realize that nothing was very popular here unless it is disposable, meaning you can throw it away. So I decided to make a disposable artificial kidney. I took up a thing that had been explored earlier by Inoyn and Engelberg. They put some coils into a pressure cooker, but they abandoned it. I made a twin-coil kidney with the cellophane tubing wound in the coils. The blood comes in through the inner tube, and it goes out through the outer tubes. First I tried a beer can to make these things but it was too small. All the early twin coil kidneys were made out of fruit juice cans or the equivalent. Later we used the plastic equivalent of a fruit juice can.</p> <p>At that time, it was thought to be unethical for a doctor to make any money on an invention. That was the point of view of the American Medical Association; it was also the point of view of the Cleveland Clinic. So I gave this invention to Baxter Laboratories and they sold this type of artificial kidney worldwide. It put the artificial kidney on the map. So that was the second artificial kidney.</p> <p><strong>When people have criticized you, Dr. Kolff, do you think the criticism has been unjust?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: It has very rarely, or never been personal. I mean, even people that disagree with me totally, and said there was no place for the artificial kidney did not say, “Kolff is an idiot.”</p> <p>At the Cleveland Clinic, I was a member of the Department of Research and I was also a member of the Department of Surgery. If I couldn’t get what I wanted through Surgery, I got it through Research, and vice versa. But around 1966, it became apparent that they didn’t want a guy straddling two departments, and wanted me to make a choice, either one or the other. I decided I would have to move, and that’s when I came to Utah.</p> <p>When I came to the University of Utah from the Cleveland Clinic, I had worked at the Cleveland Clinic for 17 years. I wanted set up an institute for biomedical engineering that would be second to none. I couldn’t do it at the Cleveland Clinic, so I began to look elsewhere, and I came to Utah. There was no money, so I had to write grant proposals to the government, and collect money from other people, but they did help me.</p> <p>One of our projects was the artificial eye project. We were not the first to do that, but William Dobelle, who I attracted to come to Salt Lake City, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you stimulate a point on the brain here, a totally blind person can see a point of light there. And if you stimulate another point here, he sees a point there. And if you had, as we had, 61 points that could be stimulated, this man could recognize a simple letter “l”, or an “a” on a black screen, if you gave him a television camera in his hand. That’s going to be very important for blind people someday, but it is not at all ready yet.</p> <p>The artificial ear, which was an offshoot of our artificial eye program, is much simpler. You do not stimulate the brain, you stimulate the acoustic nerve. We all have a snail’s house here in our head, and the acoustic nerve is beautifully arranged in that cochlea or snail shell. We can thread electrodes into the cochlea, and when you stimulate one point you hear a high tone, and when you stimulate another point you hear a low tone. Of the patients treated here at the University of Utah with this artificial ear, 60% can have a telephone conversation. They’re totally deaf otherwise. There’s good proof that it works. Now, that’s very important for the deaf.</p> <p>We’ve made artificial arms, and that is kind of a sorry project. A lot of people with artificial arms are veterans, but for a long time the Veterans Administration didn’t want to spend enough money to provide these people with decent arms. Our artificial arm is so good that it can peel an orange, and so strong it can crack a nut. It can move very fast, but when it comes close to your mouth it goes slowly suddenly, because otherwise you would knock out your teeth.</p> <p><strong>You’ve met with a number of setbacks, but you didn’t accept them as setbacks.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: No. In the long run, setbacks have often worked to the benefit of my program. Let me give you a few examples.</p> <p>One time, in Salt Lake City, one of the secretaries found out that we were charged for 22 sheep that did not exist. It turned out when the thing was investigated that one of my employees had been buying imaginary sheep. Everything a university buys goes through the purchasing department and is cleared there, but it’s too cumbersome to do that with sheep and animals and hay. So they came directly to the laboratory. This employee was in cahoots with the guy that sold the sheep and they embezzled $36,000 that way.</p> <p>The University of Utah is bonded — insured against that kind of stuff. The year the sheep were stolen, I had enough money from the NIH. I got the bonded money back in a year that I had no support from the NIH, so it saved my laboratory.</p> <p>The same guy put a torch to my building, and burned it out. The insurance company paid $125,000 to replace the equipment. Instead, I had it rebuilt by my own personnel. The lab is still brown from the smoke and the fire, but that money saved my department. You don’t see it the minute it happens, but sometimes disasters work to your advantage.</p> <p><strong>Do you ever have a feeling when something like that is accomplished that there’s an end to the project, or does that just make you think about moving on to something else?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: No. You see immediately what your next task will be. I’ve been asked all kinds of silly questions, like “Aren’t you proud? Aren’t you this? Aren’t you that?” I have no time for that, because the next project is upon me.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, could you tell me why the Jarvik heart is called the Jarvik heart?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yes. Barney Clark received the first so-called permanent artificial heart. “Permanent” has the same connotation as a permanent in a woman’s hair. It’s not really permanent, but it was called permanent. It worked for 112 days. Before that, nobody cared about what it was called.</p> <p>For convenience’s sake, when I had Dr. Kwan Gett’s work on an artificial heart in my laboratory, we called that the Kwan Gett heart. When we had another doctor’s work on it, we gave it his name. We have had many different hearts. But Jarvik stayed with me for seven years, and he was assigned to work on that heart, and therefore it was called the Jarvik heart.</p> <p>We’ve had the Kwan Gett heart, the Unger heart, the Westheimer heart, the Donovan heart, the Jarvik heart. We’ve never had a Kolff heart. It would have been rather dull otherwise. We would have had Kolff one, two, three, four. Nobody cared until the first patient came along. Then somebody threatened to sue us and said, “It should not have been called the Jarvik heart, it should have had another name.” I don’t want to say who.</p> <p>At that time, I suggested that the man who complained review the history of the Society of Artificial Organs. I gave his name to the society, but they wanted me to do it. So we counted the names of all the people who had worked with me on artificial hearts at the time the Jarvik heart was implanted in Barney Clark. We counted 247, and Jarvik was one of them.</p> <p><strong>Do you think you were always destined to be an achiever in this field?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I don’t think that’s the proper way of looking at it. I wanted to make an artificial kidney that would save people. Who did it was not so important, as long as it was done. I was convinced that I could do it, and I clung to it until it was done.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, what part of your work do you think will most benefit the world?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I’ve worked on so many different subjects, it’s hard to compare. Each is important for an entirely different set of the population. 540,000 people have been treated with dialysis worldwide, over half a million. If you realize that all these people have families too, you see how many people are involved.</p> <p>There are 33,000 people that need artificial hearts in the USA. Our artificial heart has been applied so far in only 260 people. There is so much work to be done that there is little time to be glorious about the things we’ve done.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, why do you think many people seem unwilling to donate organs in this culture?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: In the first place, I’m not sure that that is so. I think the main reason is that they’re not properly asked. Some people are better at asking than others. I recall once, I was walking through the halls of the Cleveland Clinic and…</p> <p>I heard desperate crying coming from a room. I went in and saw that a husband had just died, and it was the woman that was crying. So, I went to see the doctor who was in charge and said, “May I ask her for the man’s kidneys?” And, while she was still crying she said, “Oh, please, please, take them, let something good come out of this.” I had one Turkish assistant. He could get an organ from anybody, nobody refused him.</p> <p><strong>Do you think organs are going to become more available?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yes, but not enough. We have two kidneys, so we can give one away. So, the artificial kidney will be used gradually less, it’s already leveling off. The number of patients on dialysis is leveling off because there are so many kidney transplants, and the results are so much improved. But for hearts it’s different. There are at least 35,000 people in the United States that have irreparable heart disease and could be helped with an artificial heart. There are definitely no more than 2,000 heart donors. So that leaves 33,000 people per year that die for lack of an artificial heart.</p> <p>The FDA has stopped the use of artificial hearts because the paperwork was less than optimal. So now you know for certain that these patients are going to die. The regulatory system — the FDA, against which there is no appeal — is so difficult and so expensive for manufacturers that they don’t undertake new projects. It’s the danger of lawsuits.</p> <p>You’ve all seen, in the newspapers and television, the lawsuits about breast implants. Nobody knows what causes multiple sclerosis, but some people with multiple sclerosis are suing Dow Corning because they had silicon leaking from these artificial breasts. Well, 1.2 million women get these breasts, but now the company will not manufacture them anymore. Dow Corning may well decide to get out of the medical business. Medical sales account for 3% of their total sales. Why should they risk all the trouble and bad publicity by manufacturing medical equipment?</p> <p>FDA regulations are making it impossible to come out with new products. And we should definitely put a cap on liability suits, of any kind, because we cannot afford this. I’m sending artificial hearts to eleven different countries in the world, where surgeons are willing to implant them in animals, and do the experiments I cannot finance here. These are very exciting things, but it makes me very worried about the position the United States will have in this kind of work.</p> <p>I would like to have them made here. If I cannot have it made here, should I accept a contract from Japan? Of course I must, because it must be made. Later on we in the United States will have to buy these things from the Japanese, as we buy Japanese cars. We will not be defeated on the battlefield, but defeated because we’re not educating our people, we’re not doing long-term research for industry,</p> <p><strong>What are some of the challenges you see for the next century in the field of medicine, or in any field?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I feel very strongly that our priorities are wrong. Our priorities have been defense, killing people, more bombs when they were not needed. The military industrial complex has a momentum of its own. So many people depend on it. So many of our representatives try to keep it alive because there’s a factory in their district, and jobs are dependent on it and therefore they have to support it. But finally we should have the sense and the courage to see that we may be the strongest nation militarily, but we are becoming weaker every day commercially.</p> <p><strong>Do you work out of a sense of duty?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I have a great sense of responsibility towards patients. I have a responsibility to bring the things I have invented to the marketplace. I have a new artificial heart here now. I’ve worked on these artificial hearts very hard. If they’re not produced, I might as well not have done it.</p> <p><strong>How do you see the responsibility of someone in your field to our society in general?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I think we should use our influence to make society a better place for all of us to live in. A favorite phrase of my mine has to do with the atomic bomb. “What good does an artificial heart do you when we are all pulverized?”</p> <p>Those of us who are not dependent for a paycheck on the military industrial complex should use whatever influence we have to steer us away from this enormous, unjustified expense on defense. Our present administration, with Russia out of the picture, still wants to spend $3 billion on Star Wars! I think this is criminal. We need these $3 billion for education, we need them to help the poor, we need them to retrain the unemployed. Thirty-five million people are uninsured! We need a health system.</p> <p>In the Netherlands, everybody is insured. The government saw that it was less expensive to pay insurance fees for the poor than to set up a welfare program. You still have private insurance companies, so there is competition, but they’re both guaranteed by the government.</p> <p>The other thing we need in this country is a better control system in the application of medicine, and the spending of our funds. We need to end the stealing of money from the government. They finally closed the dialysis center in Ogden, and we were asked to take care of these patients for a few days to bridge them over. Eleven patients died because they were under-dialyzed, and a large number of patients had been treated with dialysis who did not need it, only for the financial gain of the physician and the dialysis center.</p> <p>Another point that I would like to make is about the war on drugs. I just saw in the newspaper that 73,000 Colombians have been arrested for trafficking cocaine. They are mainly mules carrying the cocaine from one place to another. And we don’t have the courage to say that we’re losing the war on drugs! We’ll never win that war. We don’t need a war on drugs, we need a drug program.</p> <p>We need to take the profit out of the drug business, because the drug lords have a hundred times as much money as the police. But if we take the profit out of it, and use that money to rehabilitate drug addicts, then we have a program. Then we can re-educate our children. There are some addicts that are lost, so make the drug available to them, so they don’t have to steal or murder to get it. Cocaine costs almost nothing to grow; marijuana even less. Make it available, do it the way the Dutch do.</p> <p>When somebody says, “We’re winning the war on drugs,” that means that fewer children of well-to-do families in suburbia are taking drugs. But you know that in the inner cities it’s getting worse and worse. The number of murders that we’ve had in the last year (1991) is larger than it has ever been.</p> <p><strong>What challenge are you going to take up next, Dr. Kolff? What is personally fascinating you right now?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I have recently gotten interested in penal reform. I spent the whole day in the state prison here. Not that I was arrested, but I saw how it was, and I listened to the prisoners. I’m very disturbed when I see legislators cut money from the prison system when they’ve never been in prison and don’t understand what the needs are.</p> <p>On one hand, they insist that more people be put in prison, but they don’t expand the prison, so the prison is overpopulated. Last year in Salt Lake City, it was a cold winter, so the prison system had a bill that was $150,000 more than they had counted on. The only place they could take the money from was from the education program. If they are uneducated, 65% come back. If they’re educated, then the recidivism is very much lower.</p> <p><strong>What would you like to contribute in this field?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: All I can do is try to use my influence. So I write small articles in the local newspaper. Then I get responses, sometimes threats.</p> <p>Another thing I think is very wrong is the attempts to make abortion illegal. I was in Lima, Peru and they said, “Dr. Kolff, would you like to meet four women who have been saved by your artificial kidney?” They were middle class women, who had already had three or four children. They decided that they could not afford a fifth, they had illegal abortions and they were infected. They would have died if they had not been dialyzed, but they’re the lucky ones.</p> <p>I will never forget a young girl who was brought to my hospital in the Netherlands in the middle of the night. She had been injected with copper sulfate by somebody trying to do an illegal abortion. Every red blood cell was broken by the cooper sulfate. I can still hear her older sister calling through the halls, “Oh, Marika! Oh, Marika!” when she died. There was not a thing I could do about it. Now we’re going back to that, and I can’t understand why. We should resist it.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, are there any personal inventive challenges that you’re taking on right now?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yes. I can show you an invention that’s four days old. In the last few years, some surgeons have been wrapping a large muscle, the <em>latissimus dorsi,</em> around a failing heart. This skeletal muscle, when stimulated electrically, can be retrained and can begin to pulse and take over part of the heart function.</p> <p>The problem, however, is that you must have a very sick patient, or you wouldn’t do it. And you need six weeks before this muscle is trained. About a week ago we conceived the idea that we would combine it with an air pump. I called Dr. Stevenson in Detroit, who is a world expert on this. I said, “I’ll make one for you. Give me ten days and you’ll have one.” He said, “I’ll put it in an animal and I’ll test it for you.” These are the exciting things for the inventor.</p> <p><strong>So, you’ve just invented that?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Yeah. So it’s not necessarily true that when you’re older you stop being inventive. Let me show you for a moment how these clamshell hearts work. This is the right ventricle and this is the left. I could put them right next to the heart here. Now I pump, and I hope that my heart will recover in between. If it doesn’t, you take the heart out, but you leave these pumps in. Now you can wait until a donor comes along, put a donor heart in, and wait until you’re certain that the donor heart works. If it works, you take the ventricles out. If it doesn’t work, you leave them in. These pumps are sufficient to carry the entire circulation. Now, what I have just told you has never been done. It should have been done, and it can be done, but it has not been done yet.</p> <p>The previous artificial hearts were all very rigid and hard. If you were to take the Jarvik heart and hit it on the table you could damage the table. So I make hearts that are softer, to make it easy for surgeons to implant them. You can take this one apart, and then the surgeons can implant this very easily.</p> <p><strong>You’ve described invention as the place where there was the excitement, the breakthroughs and the fun.</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I still have a wonderful life. To suddenly see that you can do something that was not done before! Also, when a new thought is born, in a meeting with young students and co-workers, that is fun.</p> <p><strong>I see you smile when you talk about your work being fun. What about the frustrations?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: If you can’t stand the heat, you shouldn’t be in the kitchen. I would be lying if I said I haven’t had some sleepless nights. I recall every mistake I’ve made, particularly when a patient was involved.</p> <p>I studied pathological anatomy for two years when I was a student. That cut a lot of fun out of my student times. I had to work extra hard, I didn’t lose any time. When I came to Kampen, the first thing I did was set up an autopsy room. If one of my patients died, I did the autopsy. That was usually very satisfying, because it showed me that although the patient was dead, I had been right. I remember, for example, one young man who died from a bleeding ulcer. I was very unhappy about it, and did an autopsy. It proved that it was not a regular ulcer, it was a carcinoma of the stomach. Then you don’t have any guilt feelings anymore, because there’s nothing that you could have done about it.</p> <p><strong>When you’re away from your work, do you still think about it all the time?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I wouldn’t say all the time, but a great deal of the time, yes. It’s one of the complaints — and probably a very legitimate complaint — of my wife. If I have a problem, I get involved with all my personality. Inventions are rarely made when you’re sitting at your desk, or when you’re writing. Inventions come at four o’clock in the morning. My wife has said, “I can’t sleep, the bed is full of electricity.” Poor thing. She’s been very supportive, but it must be difficult. In Holland I would take my bicycle and bicycle through the meadows. That’s also a time when inventions come.</p> <p>Another time inventions may come is when you discuss it with others. This is why I have my morning conference with not more than eight people, very young people, and it is a delight. By the way, in Holland, if you study medicine, the government will pay you. The Dutch students that I have here are paid by the Dutch government, even while they’re here. I wish it was that way in this country.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, can you talk about having a balance in your personal life versus your work life? How do you work that out?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: I may be an inventor, but in the first place I’m a doctor. So for many years I was available day and night. It might be Christmas Day when I was called away. My wife was very good in never opposing me when I was called for a patient who was ill. But, she insisted that I spend at least Saturday afternoon and Sunday with the family. And that I did, as long as we had small children. We have five children.</p> <p>Then of course we had a lot of visitors. I’ve never been paid very much, so I didn’t have the money to take them to a restaurant. The only thing I could do was call my wife and say, “I have a Spaniard here, may I bring him for dinner?” That was at five o’clock, and at six o’clock I brought the guy for dinner. Then he had to have dinner with the whole family, and there was one rule: medicine could not be discussed.</p> <p>Our oldest son is now a heart surgeon. When he was in school, he looked over our guest book before he made a tour around the world. He stayed in a hotel only once. Otherwise he stayed with people who’d had dinner with the family.</p> <p><strong>Is it difficult to maintain a balanced life when you’re so intent on what you’re doing?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: It became more difficult when the children left the house. Fortunately my wife is the curator of malacology in the Museum of Natural History here. Malacology is the knowledge of seashells. She has the best and largest scientific collection between the West Coast and Chicago. For years I accepted invitations for talks in other countries only when it was near the seashore, so we could collect seashells.</p> <p>We’re both bird watchers. We both like nature. We did the sculptures of the animals from roots and branches together. So we’ve done many great things together, and we have many common interests. I am sure it’s been hard on my wife when I wrote too many grant proposals. That was very difficult for her.</p> <p>Do you have any more questions?</p> <p><strong>Do you have any more answers?</strong></p> <p>Willem Kolff: Some things I’ve said are not very encouraging. I can’t help that. But it does not discourage me. I would say to younger people, even as of this moment, when the prospects are bleak, the need is still there. And if you’re young, maybe by the time that you’re ready to do this kind of work, the sky will be bluer than it is now.</p> <p><strong>Dr. Kolff, thank you for all you’ve done, and thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>32 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.6521739130435" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Kolff-en-prins-Bernhard-Kampen-1948.jpg" data-image-caption="1948: Willem Kolff and Prince Bernhard in Kampen, a Dutch province of Overijssel, Netherlands. Two years later, Dr. Kolff and his family immigrate to the United States where he begins working in the Research Department and the Department of Surgery of the Cleveland Clinic." data-image-copyright="kolff-en-prins-bernhard-kampen-1948" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Kolff-en-prins-Bernhard-Kampen-1948-230x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Kolff-en-prins-Bernhard-Kampen-1948-460x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.81578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-2.jpg" data-image-caption="1974: Willem Kolff with Roma Proctor, a woman who received an artificial kidney. The calf had an artificial heart inside his chest for 37 days when this picture was taken. The calf had since broken all existing records of survival. (Willem J. Kolff Collection at the University of Utah Marriott Library)" data-image-copyright="55428-2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-2-380x310.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-2-760x620.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2520593080725" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-514948744.jpg" data-image-caption="March 5, 1950: A cellophane tube containing human blood passes through a salt bath mixture in this new artificial kidney at Cleveland Clinic. Its developer, Dr. William J. Kolff, is the Dutch doctor who recently had joined the staff at the clinic. Looking on are Dr. Irvine H. Page, Research Director, and Dr. A. C. Corcoran, Assistant Research Director." data-image-copyright="Medical Inventor With Inspectors of His Invention" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-514948744-304x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-514948744-607x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.375" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/01-Ms0654_chart.jpg" data-image-caption="The Willem Johan Kolff papers (http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv39526) contain materials that record the many artificial organ projects, from early dialysis to the first artificial heart implant, as well as the personal life of one of the world’s most respected pioneering doctors. In 1950, Dr. Kolff and his family immigrated to the United States, where he began working in the Research Department and the Department of Surgery of the Cleveland Clinic. He worked on the artificial kidney, the heart-lung machine, and invented the total artificial heart in 1957, one year after becoming a United States citizen. He became Scientific Director of Cleveland’s Artificial Organ program, then moved to Utah in 1967 to direct the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. At the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Kolff was in charge of teams working on artificial kidneys, artificial hearing, the artificial eye, artificial arm, the subcutaneous peritoneal access device, and the artificial heart. In 1982 Dr. Barney Clark received the first “permanent artificial heart” implanted in a human. This event made the University of Utah known throughout the world as the leader in artificial organ research. Dr. Kolff has received more than a hundred awards, among these the prestigious Japan Prize in 1986. He has published more than six hundred articles. Dr. Kolff was Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Surgery, and Research Professor of Engineering, and Director of his Lab, where he worked to perfect the artificial heart. This amazing collection, consisting of 708 boxes, is available to the public. Please contact Special Collection at 801-581-8863 for more information. (Betsy Welland) (J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah)" data-image-copyright="01-ms0654_chart" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/01-Ms0654_chart-380x143.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/01-Ms0654_chart-760x285.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.83947368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KolfDrumKidney.jpg" data-image-caption="Replica of the rotating drum kidney developed by Dr. Willem Kolff." data-image-copyright="Replica of the rotating drum kidney Willem Kolff." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KolfDrumKidney-380x319.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KolfDrumKidney-760x638.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4179104477612" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-3.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Kolff with Dr. Clifford Kwan-Gett, cardiovascular surgeon who directed engineering research and animal studies at the University of Utah." data-image-copyright="kolff-3" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-3-268x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-3-536x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.95524691358025" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/fourgenerations.jpg" data-image-caption="Four generations — three doctors: Father, Jacob, left, and son Jack, now an intern. Kolff's grandfather is at right." data-image-copyright="fourgenerations" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/fourgenerations-380x363.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/fourgenerations.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2297734627832" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Ms0654_molds.jpg" data-image-caption="The Willem Johan Kolff papers (1935-2009) contain materials that record the many artificial organ projects, from early dialysis to the first artificial heart implant, as well as the personal life of one of the world's most respected pioneering doctors. Kolff was a distinguished professor of surgery at the University of Utah, a medical researcher specializing in artificial organs, and a developer of the first permanent artificial heart implanted in a human (1982). (Repository University of Utah Libraries, Special Collections. Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library)" data-image-copyright="05-ms0654_molds" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Ms0654_molds-309x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/05-Ms0654_molds-618x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.77105263157895" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/06-Ms0654_notes-Willem-Kolff-Papers.jpg" data-image-caption="The Willem Johan Kolff papers (http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv39526) contain materials that record the many artificial organ projects, from early dialysis to the first artificial heart implant, as well as the personal life of one of the world’s most respected pioneering doctors. In 1950, Dr. Kolff and his family immigrated to the United States, where he began working in the Research Department and the Department of Surgery of the Cleveland Clinic. He worked on the artificial kidney, the heart-lung machine, and invented the total artificial heart in 1957, one year after becoming a United States citizen. He became Scientific Director of Cleveland’s Artificial Organ program, then moved to Utah in 1967 to direct the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. At the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Kolff was in charge of teams working on artificial kidneys, artificial hearing, the artificial eye, artificial arm, the subcutaneous peritoneal access device, and the artificial heart. In 1982 Dr. Barney Clark received the first “permanent artificial heart” implanted in a human. This event made the University of Utah known throughout the world as the leader in artificial organ research. Dr. Kolff has received more than a hundred awards, among these the prestigious Japan Prize in 1986. He has published more than six hundred articles. Dr. Kolff was Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Surgery, and Research Professor of Engineering, and Director of his Lab, where he worked to perfect the artificial heart. This amazing collection, consisting of 708 boxes, is available to the public. Please contact Special Collection at 801-581-8863 for more information. (Betsy Welland) (J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah)" data-image-copyright="06-ms0654_notes-willem-kolff-papers" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/06-Ms0654_notes-Willem-Kolff-Papers-380x293.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/06-Ms0654_notes-Willem-Kolff-Papers-760x586.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KOLFF1.jpg" data-image-caption="February 18, 2003: For his pioneering work on artificial organs, Willem J. Kolff was awarded the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize — a $500,000 award recognizing outstanding achievement in engineering. The National Academy of Engineering presented the honor at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C." data-image-copyright="kolff1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KOLFF1-380x258.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/KOLFF1-760x515.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4757281553398" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Willem Kolff" data-image-copyright="11" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-258x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-515x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.7194570135747" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/02-Ms0654_declaration.jpg" data-image-caption="Governor Leavitt Declaration Award, part of the The Willem Johan Kolff papers (http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv39526) containing materials that record the many artificial organ projects, from early dialysis to the first artificial heart implant, as well as the personal life of one of the world’s most respected pioneering doctors. In 1950, Dr. Kolff and his family immigrated to the United States, where he began working in the Research Department and the Department of Surgery of the Cleveland Clinic. He worked on the artificial kidney, the heart-lung machine, and invented the total artificial heart in 1957, one year after becoming a United States citizen. He became Scientific Director of Cleveland’s Artificial Organ program, then moved to Utah in 1967 to direct the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. At the Division of Artificial Organs and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Kolff was in charge of teams working on artificial kidneys, artificial hearing, the artificial eye, artificial arm, the subcutaneous peritoneal access device, and the artificial heart. In 1982 Dr. Barney Clark received the first “permanent artificial heart” implanted in a human. This event made the University of Utah known throughout the world as the leader in artificial organ research. Dr. Kolff has received more than a hundred awards, among these the prestigious Japan Prize in 1986. He has published more than six hundred articles. Dr. Kolff was Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Surgery, and Research Professor of Engineering, and Director of his Lab, where he worked to perfect the artificial heart. This amazing collection, consisting of 708 boxes, is available to the public. Please contact Special Collection at 801-581-8863 for more information. (Betsy Welland) (J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah)" data-image-copyright="02-ms0654_declaration" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/02-Ms0654_declaration-221x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/02-Ms0654_declaration-442x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.005291005291" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier.jpg" data-image-caption="In 1943, Kolff developed the first crude artificial kidney. Working with wooden drums, cellophane tubing, and laundry tubs, Kolff constructed an apparatus that drew the patient's blood, cleansed it of impurities, and pumped it back into the patient. (Museum Boerhaave)" data-image-copyright="11-kunstnier" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier-378x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-Kunstnier-756x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.77763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24.jpg" data-image-caption="1966: Kolff and his team in Cleveland. After the war, in 1950, Dr. Kolff and his family came to the United States to join the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio as a researcher. At Cleveland, he turned to the study of cardiovascular problems and built one of the first heart/lung machines, a device that made open-heart surgery possible for the first time. He also improved his dialysis machine." data-image-copyright="24" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24-380x296.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/24-760x591.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.85789473684211" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-1.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Willem J. Kolff, in the 1980s at his University of Utah lab, displaying an artificial heart, a version of which is still in use. (University of Utah, Marriott Library)" data-image-copyright="55428-1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-1-380x326.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/55428-1-760x652.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4312617702448" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/atkampen.jpg" data-image-caption="1941: At Kampen during Nazi occupation, Dr. Kolff snatches a moment of relaxation with his wife, Janke." data-image-copyright="atkampen" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/atkampen-265x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/atkampen-531x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.79868421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeride.jpg" data-image-caption="Free ride is given to young Willem Kolff by two of his brothers in their backyard at Beek-bergen. Kolff was born in Leyden in 1911." data-image-copyright="freeride" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeride-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/freeride-760x607.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.374321880651" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-502323727.jpg" data-image-caption="April 4, 1979: Kolff with artificial heart. (Dick Darrell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Kolff with artificial heart" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-502323727-276x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-502323727-553x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.484375" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-611391399.jpg" data-image-caption="1982: Dr. William DeVries, surgeon who performed the first permanent artificial heart transplant on a human patient circa 1982. DeVries was a first-year medical student and one of the first research assistants hired by Kolff when he began his artificial heart program in Utah in 1967. (Photo by Images Press/IMAGES/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="gettyimages-611391399" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-611391399-256x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GettyImages-611391399-512x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.81578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GNBBHB_.jpg" data-image-caption="July 1993: Willem Kolff and Adrian Kantrowitz at the International Society for Artificial Organs (ISAO)/European Society for Artificial Organs (ESAO) Meeting in Amsterdam, Holland." data-image-copyright="gnbbhb_" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GNBBHB_-380x310.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/GNBBHB_-760x620.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.72236842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kampen.jpg" data-image-caption="October 2004: The Willem Kolff Foundation brought together two honorary citizens of the city of Kampen on the occasion of the opening of the Kolff Information Centre. On the left is former mayor Henk Kleemans (honorary citizen since 1999), and in the middle is Dr. Willem Kolff (honorary citizen since 1970). Dr. Kolff went to the University of Groningen for his residency in medicine during the German occupation. He started working on the artificial kidney in 1939, and became the first internist at a small hospital in Kampen, where he continued the work on the artificial kidney. The rotating drum kidney was developed in 1941, and by 1955 the twin-coil kidney had led to the possibility of dialysis worldwide. Work on the heart/lung machines began in 1948, and the first membrane oxygenators were used successfully in patients in 1955. (Photo: WKS/Dick Fox)" data-image-copyright="kampen" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kampen-380x274.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kampen-760x549.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65921052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/04-Ms0654_kidneynews.jpg" data-image-caption="Part of the The Willem Johan Kolff papers, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah." data-image-copyright="04-ms0654_kidneynews" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/04-Ms0654_kidneynews-380x250.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/04-Ms0654_kidneynews-760x501.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-AP8604190242.jpg" data-image-caption="April 19, 1986: Dr. Willem Johan Kolff, 75, professor of medical and biomedical engineering at the University of Utah, delivers his speech at a reception for Japan Prize Winners at a Tokyo hotel. Dr. Kolff was cited for his development of the artificial kidney in 1943 and his work on other manmade organs. Japanese Crown Prince Akihito is seen at second from right in the foreground. (AP Photo/Tsugufumi Matsumoto)" data-image-copyright="kolff-ap8604190242" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-AP8604190242-380x249.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-AP8604190242-760x498.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.78157894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/03-Ms0654_kidneyarticle.jpg" data-image-caption="Part of the The Willem Johan Kolff papers, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah." data-image-copyright="03-ms0654_kidneyarticle" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/03-Ms0654_kidneyarticle-380x297.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/03-Ms0654_kidneyarticle-760x594.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Kolff-in-2003.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Willem Kolff" data-image-copyright="kolff-in-2003" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Kolff-in-2003-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Kolff-in-2003-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.60921052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-1.jpg" data-image-caption="Circa 1941-43: Nurse Maria ter Welle modeling first artificial kidney in Netherlands." data-image-copyright="1941/43: Nurse Maria ter Welle modeling 1st artificial kidney in Netherlands" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-1-380x231.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-1-760x463.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3356766256591" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff2.jpg" data-image-caption="Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D." data-image-copyright="Willem J. Kolff, M.D., PhD" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff2-285x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff2-569x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.99210526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-2.jpg" data-image-caption="1941: Four rotating drum kidneys made during the war and during German occupation in the Netherlands. Taken in the garden of the hospital in Kampen. During the war they were hidden in different places to keep them from being destroyed." data-image-copyright="kolff-2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-2-380x377.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-2-760x754.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.91315789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-4.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Willem J. Kolff" data-image-copyright="kolff-4" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-4-380x347.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/kolff-4-760x694.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.73289473684211" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/US3902490-2.jpg" data-image-caption="September 2, 1975: United States Patent for Portable Artificial Kidney System. Inventors: Stephen C. Jacobsen; Clifford Kwan-Gett; Willem J. Kolff, all of University of Utah, Salt Lake City." data-image-copyright="us3902490-2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/US3902490-2-380x279.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/US3902490-2-760x557.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-kolffbrochure-lastphoto.jpg" data-image-caption="A lively discussion of proposed experiment is started by Drs. Kolff and Satoru Nakamoto, of kidney transplant team, with Paul Philips and Bob Johanse, engineers, and Dr. C. L. Sarin." data-image-copyright="wp-kolffbrochure-lastphoto" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-kolffbrochure-lastphoto-380x255.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-kolffbrochure-lastphoto-760x509.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65921052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-kolffheadshotimg049-002.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Willem J. Kolff, the father of artificial organs." data-image-copyright="Dr. Willem J. Kolff, the father of artificial organs." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-kolffheadshotimg049-002-380x251.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-kolffheadshotimg049-002-760x501.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on November 10, 2016</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration ambitious curious " data-year-inducted="2000" data-achiever-name="Blackburn"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elizabeth-blackburn/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/blackburn-760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/06/blackburn-760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Nobel Prize in Medicine</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2000</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration curious spiritual-religious pioneer work-in-medicine " data-year-inducted="1994" data-achiever-name="Collins"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/collins-001a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/collins-001a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Francis S. 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Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. Watson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/andrew-weil-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew Weil, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elie-wiesel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elie Wiesel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606030335/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-o-wilson-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward O. 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