in Boston Massachusetts, and later the Travenol Twin-Coil Artificial Kidney. At Brigham and Women's Hospital, with funding from New York real estate developer David Rose he developed the first production artificial kidney, the Kolff Brigham Artificial Kidney, manufactured by the Edward A.

He also improved on his dialysis machine. At the Cleveland Clinic, he was involved in the development of heart-lung machines to maintain heart and pulmonary function during cardiac surgery. In 1950, Kolff left the Netherlands to seek opportunities in the US. Isidore Snapper at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City was used to perform the first human dialysis in the United States on Januunder the supervision of Drs. In Europe, Kolff sent machines to London, Amsterdam, and Poland. When the war ended, Kolff donated his artificial kidneys to other hospitals to spread familiarity with the technology. It marks the start of a treatment that has saved the lives of millions of acute kidney injury or chronic kidney failure patients ever since. In 1946 he obtained a PhD degree summa cum laude at University of Groningen on the subject. He treated his first patient in 1943, and in 1945 he was able to save a patient's life with hemodialysis treatment. Simultaneously, Kolff developed the first functioning artificial kidney. In 1945, Kolff successfully treated his first patient, a 67-year-old woman, from kidney failure using his hemodialysis machine.ĭuring World War II, he was in Kampen, where he was active in the resistance against the German occupation. Over a two-year span, Kolff had attempted to treat 15 people with his machine, but all had died. Kolff's first prototype dialyzer was developed in 1943, built from orange juice cans, used auto parts, and sausage casings. Also during his residency, Kolff organized the first blood bank in Europe (in 1940).

This prompted Kolff to perform research on artificial renal function replacement. One of his first patients was a 22-year-old man who was slowly dying of chronic kidney failure. Kolff studied medicine in his hometown at Leiden University, and continued as a resident in internal medicine at Groningen University.

Born in Leiden, Netherlands, Kolff was the eldest of a family of 5 boys.

Willem kelf