Organ Transplant Pioneer

Joseph E. Murray, MD

As a second-year high school chemistry student, Joseph Murray was fascinated with the periodic table of elements. His enthusiasm for the natural sciences spurred his passion for discovery during his three-year stint at Valley Forge General Hospital during World War II. Dr. Murray’s curiosity about the tendency of victims to reject skin grafts from soldiers who were not relatives while grafts from twin soldiers healed properly proved to be the impetus for his work in human organ transplantation. When he made the claim that human to human transplantation was life-saving rather than life-threatening, Dr. Murray experienced the same professional doubt and disbelief as Galileo when he theorized the earth was not the center of the universe.

Dr. Murray’s perseverance paid off when he performed a successful kidney transplant between two dogs. In 1954, Dr. Murray and his team performed the first successful kidney transplant between identical twins. In 1962, Dr. Murray performed the first successful kidney transplant from an unrelated kidney donor. More than three decades after his bold move in the field of transplantation, Dr. Murray’s discoveries earned him the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1990.