BARBIE DOLLS CONTRIBUTE THEIR BODIES TO SCIENCE.

Byline: Karen Garloch Knight Ridder Newspapers

For 40 years, she's been the doll with the incredibly curvy body. Now, she's putting some of it to good use.

It turns out the plastic knee joints in Barbie's long, shapely legs make good knuckles in prosthetic fingers for people who have lost part of a hand.

Jane Bahor, who makes lifelike body parts for amputees at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., has used knees from retired Barbie dolls to make new fingers for about a dozen patients.

``She's made her cultural contribution, now she can make a medical contribution,'' Bahor said of Mattel's popular fashion doll.

Bahor and a patient, Jennifer Jordan, then an North Carolina State University engineering student, came up with the idea three years ago while brainstorming how to make Jordan's prosthetic finger more realistic and useful.

They thought about Barbie's easy-to-bend knees, and Jordan brought in some of her old dolls. Bahor took them apart to find a ``simple little ratchet joint'' that fit quite nicely inside a flexible foam digit.

``It's working out well for several patients,'' said Bahor, an anaplastologist, whose colleagues around the country are also testing the idea. ``A lot of us have played around with the Barbie joint.''

When Bahor began experimenting with Barbie as a donor, she collected old dolls and amputated their legs to remove the knee joints. Later, she decided to preserve the dolls by cutting open the legs, taking out the knee joints, then closing the legs, and giving them back to children.

``A 3-year-old could care less if the doll has a suture line down the back of the leg,'' she said.

But operating on each doll took time. Last fall, when Bahor thought the idea was really going to work, she called Mattel and asked to buy some knee joints. Mattel was so impressed, the company sent Bahor a bag full of parts - free.

``Everybody here is really excited that Barbie not only brings joy to little girls but also can help adults who have had accidents,'' said Lisa McKendall, a Mattel spokeswoman in California.

Bahor has used Barbie's knee in two types of prostheses. In some patients, she installed the joint in a single prosthetic digit that attaches by suction to the portion of finger that remains. Other patients with more extensive damage wear rubber gloves, and Bahor makes flexible foam fingers that fit inside the gloves. The knee joints are embedded in the foam.

Wearers of these fake fingers bend them in the same way they would bend Barbie's leg. They can use their other hand to bend the joint, as if cracking the knuckle. Just like Barbie's legs, the fingers stay bent until the owner straightens them again.

Being able to bend prosthetic fingers makes it easier for an amputee to hold a pen, pick up a cup, grip the steering wheel. ``Just a simple thing like that is an enhancement,'' Bahor said.

She gives a lot of credit to Mattel and Barbie.

``After all these years of being maligned,'' Bahor said, ``she's finally come up with a social conscience.''

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Photo: (Color) no caption (Barbie)