Van Phillips (inventor)
{{short description|American inventor of prosthetics (born 1954)}}
Van Phillips (born 1954) is an American{{cite web | url = http://www.epo.org/topics/innovation-and-economy/european-inventor/nominees/2008/philips.html | title = Runaway Success | access-date=2015-02-12 | publisher = European Patent Office }} inventor of prosthetics.
Biography
He is known for the Flex-Foot brand of artificial foot and limbs that he created, and for his charity work for amputees. An amputee himself, having lost a leg below the knee at age 21, Phillips was motivated by the limitations of then-existing artificial limbs to attend the Northwestern University Medical School Prosthetic-Orthotic Center. After graduation, he worked as a biomedical design engineer at the University of Utah{{cite web | url=http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/phillips.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070714023614/http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/phillips.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=2007-07-14 | title = Inventor of the Week, January 2007: Van Phillips | publisher = Lemelson-MIT program | access-date=2008-07-02}} before starting his own company, Flex-Foot Incorporated in 1984.
Phillips ultimately created a workable artificial foot made from carbon graphite. Unlike all previous prostheses,{{citation needed|date=February 2013}} it stored kinetic energy from the wearer's steps as potential energy, like a spring, allowing the wearer to run and jump. A prosthetic foot that he created, the Flex-Foot Cheetah, is used by double-amputee and Paralympics gold-medalist Oscar Pistorius, and about 90 percent of Paralympics participants use a variation of the original Flex-Foot design, as well as thousands of people around the world. Phillips sold Flex-Foot to Össur in 2000, which continues to manufacture the artificial foot.{{cite news|title=A Personal Call to a Prosthetic Invention|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/sports/olympics/02cheetah.html?ref=sports|date=2008-07-02|access-date=2008-07-02|work=New York Times | first=Carol | last=Pogash}}
In 1999 he established Second Wind, a non-profit organization to provide inexpensive and resistant prostheses to amputees around the world, and is now working to create a prosthetic leg for land mine victims in developing countries.{{cite web | url = http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/ilives/van_phillips/van_phillips.html | title = Artificial Parts: Van Phillips | access-date=2008-07-02 | author = Martha Davidson | publisher = Smithsonian Institution }} In 1998 he received the Brian Blatchford Memorial Prize from the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics.
== See also ==
References
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External links
- [http://www.ossur.com/?PageID=3655 Van Phillips page at ossur.com]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d7O8UxFJt4 2011 Video of Van Phillips giving a presentation on inventing his prosthetics]
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Category:20th-century American inventors
Category:Feinberg School of Medicine alumni
Category:University of Utah staff
Category:Sports inventors and innovators
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