Jeff Knurek

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Jeff Knurek is an American cartoonist, industrial designer, and toymaker. He is the current cartoonist for the syndicated Jumble puzzle, working with David L. Hoyt. [1]

Contents

Personal life

Knurek was born in 1966 Wyandotte, Michigan.

In 2007, Knurek became an organ donor when he donated a kidney to a family member. Knurek and his cousin underwent the transplantation surgery at the University of Michigan Health System’s Transplant Center on July 11, 2007. His cousin suffered from Polycystic kidney disease. [2]

He currently lives in Fishers, Indiana, with his wife Kathy and his children Sydney and Cameron.

Professional life

Knurek graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in industrial design. [3] In 1989, while working for the I.D.E.A. toy invention studio, his creation Spikeball was marketed by Tomy. [3]

In 2002, Knurek partnered with David L. Hoyt, Tribune Content Agency, and Hasbro to develop the Boggle BrainBuster syndicated daily puzzle. [4] [5]

Knurek is also the inventor of "What's in Ned's Head?" a popular game that has received several parenting awards. Since its creation in 2003, many schools are using this game as a secondary bonus to their classrooms and as an adjunct to speech therapy. [6]

In 2006, he developed Fundex Games's award winning "Monster Under My Bed!" [3]

He worked with Las Vegas magician Mac King to create and market Mac King's "Magic in a Minute" line of children's promotions, toys, magic tricks, videos, books, and events. [6]

Knurek took over as cartoonist for the Jumble in 2008, becoming the third cartoonist the syndicated feature's history. In 2014, he and Hoyt produced the Just Jumble app. [7] He has been a member of the National Cartoonists Society since 2013. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Organ donation</span> Process of voluntarily giving away organs

Organ donation is the process when a person authorizes an organ of their own to be removed and transplanted to another person, legally, either by consent while the donor is alive, through a legal authorization for deceased donation made prior to death, or for deceased donations through the authorization by the legal next of kin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Organ transplantation</span> Medical procedure in which an organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient

Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient, to replace a damaged or missing organ. The donor and recipient may be at the same location, or organs may be transported from a donor site to another location. Organs and/or tissues that are transplanted within the same person's body are called autografts. Transplants that are recently performed between two subjects of the same species are called allografts. Allografts can either be from a living or cadaveric source.

Prior to the introduction of brain death into law in the mid to late 1970s, all organ transplants from cadaveric donors came from non-heart-beating donors (NHBDs).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jumble</span> American word puzzle syndicated in daily newspapers

Jumble is a word puzzle with a clue, a drawing illustrating the clue, and a set of words, each of which is “jumbled” by scrambling its letters. A solver reconstructs the words, and then arranges letters at marked positions in the words to spell the answer phrase to the clue. The clue, and sometimes the illustration, provide hints about the answer phrase, which frequently uses a homophone or pun.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kidney transplantation</span> Medical procedure

Kidney transplant or renal transplant is the organ transplant of a kidney into a patient with end-stage kidney disease (ESRD). Kidney transplant is typically classified as deceased-donor or living-donor transplantation depending on the source of the donor organ. Living-donor kidney transplants are further characterized as genetically related (living-related) or non-related (living-unrelated) transplants, depending on whether a biological relationship exists between the donor and recipient. The first successful kidney transplant was performed in 1954 by a team including Joseph Murray, the recipient's surgeon, and Hartwell Harrison, surgeon for the donor. Murray was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990 for this and other work. In 2018, an estimated 95,479 kidney transplants were performed worldwide, 36% of which came from living donors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Starzl</span> American physician, researcher, and expert on organ transplants

Thomas Earl Starzl was an American physician, researcher, and expert on organ transplants. He performed the first human liver transplants, and has often been referred to as "the father of modern transplantation." A documentary, entitled "Burden of Genius," covering the medical and scientific advances spearheaded by Starzl himself, was released to the public in 2017 in a series of screenings. Dr. Starzl also penned his autobiography, "The Puzzle People: Memoirs Of A Transplant Surgeon," which was published in 1992.

Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American editorial cartoonist whose cartoons typically present liberal viewpoints. He currently draws cartoons for the Tribune Content Agency. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post and USA Today. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor. In addition, he is co-founder of Counterpoint Media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Organ transplantation in China</span>

Organ transplantation in China has taken place since the 1960s, and is one of the largest organ transplant programmes in the world, peaking at over 13,000 liver and kidney transplants a year in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tribune Content Agency</span> American syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing

Tribune Content Agency (TCA) is a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing. TCA had previously been known as the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS), Tribune Company Syndicate, and Tribune Media Services. TCA is headquartered in Chicago, and had offices in various American cities, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong.

Organ procurement is a surgical procedure that removes organs or tissues for reuse, typically for organ transplantation.

Certain fundamental Jewish law questions arise in issues of organ donation. Donation of an organ from a living person to save another's life, where the donor's health will not appreciably suffer, is permitted and encouraged in Jewish law. Donation of an organ from a dead person is equally permitted for the same purpose: to save a life. This simple statement of the issue belies, however, the complexity of defining death in Jewish law. Thus, although there are side issues regarding mutilation of the body etc., the primary issue that prevents organ donation from the dead amongst Jews, in many cases, is the definition of death, simply because to take a life-sustaining organ from a person who was still alive would be murder.

Organ trade is the trading of human organs, tissues, or other body products, usually for transplantation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), organ trade is a commercial transplantation where there is a profit, or transplantations that occur outside of national medical systems. There is a global need or demand for healthy body parts for transplantation, which exceeds the numbers available.

Uclick LLC was an American corporation selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web and mobile phones. Uclick operated several consumer websites, including the comic strip and editorial cartoon site GoComics and the puzzle and casual game sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com.

Organ transplantation in Israel has historically been low compared to other Western countries due to a common belief that organ donation is prohibited under Jewish law. This changed with the passage of new organ donation laws in 2008. If two patients have the same medical need, priority will now go to the patient who has signed an organ donor card, or whose family members have donated an organ. This policy was nicknamed don't give, don't get. The law also defines "brain death" as an indication of death for all legal purposes, including organ donation. Additionally the law provides financial reimbursement to living donors for medical expenses due to donation and lost time at work. Organ trafficking is explicitly banned. Health insurance plans can no longer reimburse patients who go abroad to receive transplants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrews McMeel Syndication</span> American content syndicate

Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heart transplantation</span> Surgical transplant procedure

A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease when other medical or surgical treatments have failed. As of 2018, the most common procedure is to take a functioning heart, with or without both lungs, from a recently deceased organ donor and implant it into the patient. The patient's own heart is either removed and replaced with the donor heart or, much less commonly, the recipient's diseased heart is left in place to support the donor heart.

David L. Hoyt is an American puzzle and game inventor and author. He is the most syndicated puzzle maker in America.

Organ donation is when a person gives their organs after they die to someone in need of new organs. Transplantation is the process of transplanting the organs donated into another person. This process extends the life expectancy of a person suffering from organ failure. The number of patients requiring organ transplants outweighs the number of donor organs available.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorry Segev</span> American surgeon

Dorry L. Segev is the Marjory K. and Thomas Pozefsky Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and associate vice chair of the Department of Surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has made significant contributions to the field of transplantation, including developing a mathematical model to facilitate a nationwide kidney paired donation program, both in the US and Canada. He is also known for his role in getting the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act signed into law.

Organ transplantation in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu is regulated by India's Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994 and is facilitated by the Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (TRANSTAN) of the Government of Tamil Nadu and several NGOs. Tamil Nadu ranks first in India in deceased organ donation rate at 1.8 per million population, which is seven times higher than the national average.

References

  1. "Jumble® by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek".
  2. "Jumble Artist Encourages Organ Donors". www.kidney.org. National Kidney Foundation. Archived from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2016-10-09.
  3. 1 2 3 "News - Jeff Knurek Awarded | Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan". stamps.umich.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-10-31.
  4. "Boggle BrainBusters by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek". Tribune Content Agency. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
  5. "Jumble® by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek". Tribune Content Agency. Retrieved 2018-10-09.
  6. 1 2 Striebel, Janet. "More Than Just the World's Biggest Syndicated Puzzle Guy". Towne Post Network. Retrieved 2016-10-09.
  7. "Jeff Knurek: Just Jumble App".
  8. "National Cartoonists Society". Archived from the original on 2016-04-04. Retrieved 2016-08-13.