‘Inventor for Life’ is an exciting biography on the life of Dutch born American medical inventor Willem Johan ‘Pim’ Kolff M.D. PhD (1911), the father of artificial organs. The book is now available.

The year 2007 celebrates the 60^th anniversary of the artificial kidney in the United States (1947), the 50th anniversary of the invention of the artificial heart (1957) and the 25th anniversary of the Barney Clark artificial heart implantation in Salt Lake City (1982). A perfect time to publish the compelling life-story of the medical inventor who started it all: Willem Johan ‘Pim’ Kolff M.D. PhD, now aged 96.

The inventions of Dr Kolff didn’t only save or restore millions of lives, his contributions to medical science started a new era in medicine, thus changing the very perspective of mankind. The book ‘Inventor for Life, the Story of W.J. Kolff, Father of Artificial Organs’, is now available.

With inventing the artificial kidney (the birth of kidney dialysis), contributing to the heart-lungmachine, implanting and developing the first total artificial heart, Dr Kolff opened up the era of artificial organs, one of the most important developments of medicine in the 20th century: replacing human body parts by machines inside or outside the body.

Tens of millions of people all over the world owe their lives to medical devices that were invented by Dr. Kolff and the thousands of medical researchers and engineers who followed his lead. Now the story of the man who was responsible for opening the field, is being told in a book, ‘Inventor for Life’.