Willem Johan "Pim" Kolff (February 14, 1911 – February 11, 2009) was a pioneer of hemodialysis as well as in the field of artificial organs. Willem is a member of the Kolff family, an old Dutch patrician family. He migrated in 1950 to the United States, where he obtained the US citizenship in 1955.



The Netherlands

Born in Leiden, Netherlands, Kolff studied medicine in his hometown at Leiden University, and continued as a resident in internal medicine at Groningen University. One of his first patients there was a 22-year old man who was slowly dying of renal failure. This prompted Kolff to perform research on artificial renal function replacement. Also during his residency, Kolff organised the first blood bank in Europe (in 1940).During World War II, he was based in Kampen, where he was active in the resistance against the German occupation. Simultaneously, Kolff developed the first functioning artificial kidney.Moore, Carrie A. "Kolff, "father of artificial organs," dies at 97", Deseret News, February 11, 2009. Accessed February 11, 2009. He treated his first patient in 1943, and in 1945 he was first able to save a patient"s life with hemodialysis treatment. In 1946 he obtained a PhD degree summa cum laude at University of Groningen on the subject. It marks the start of a treatment that has saved the lives of millions of acute or chronic renal failure patients ever since.