Van Phillips (born 1954) is an American 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 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, 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
The Flex-Foot Cheetah is a prosthetic human foot replacement developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips, who had lost a leg below the knee at age 21; the deficiencies of existing prostheses led him to invent this new prosthesis.
The Flex-Foo ...
, is used by double-amputee and
Paralympics
The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaired ...
gold-medalist
Oscar Pistorius
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African convicted murderer and former professional sprinter. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old owing to a congenital defect; he was born missing the o ...
, 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
Ă–ssur in 2000, which continues to manufacture the artificial foot.
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.
In 1998 he received the
Brian Blatchford Memorial Prize from the
International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics.
See also
*
Ă–ssur#Prosthetics
References
External links
Van Phillips page at ossur.com2011 Video of Van Phillips giving a presentation on inventing his prosthetics
1954 births
Living people
20th-century American inventors
Northwestern University alumni
University of Utah staff
Sports inventors and innovators
American amputees
Prosthetics
Engineers from Utah
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