Van Phillips (inventor)

Van Phillips is an American inventor of prosthetics, including the Flex-Foot Cheetah, the prosthetic foot used by double-amputee and Paralympics gold-medalist Oscar Pistorius.

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 Utahcite web | url=http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/phillips.html | title = Inventor of the Week, January 2007: Van Phillips|accessdate=2008-07-02] before starting his own company, Flex-Foot Incorporated.

Phillips ultimately created an artificial foot made from carbon graphite. Unlike all previous prostheses, it stored kinetic energy, like a spring, from the wearers steps as potential energy, allowing the wearer to run and jump.

In 1999 he established Second Wind, a non-profit organization for aiding amputees, 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|accessdate=2008-07-02|publisher=Martha Davidson]

He sold Flex-Foot to Ossur in 2000. [cite web|title=A Personal Call to a Prosthetic Invention|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/sports/olympics/02cheetah.html?ref=sports|date=2008-07-02|accessdate=2008-07-02|publisher=New York Times]

References

External links

* [http://www.ossur.com/?PageID=3655 Van Phillips page at ossur.com]