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Organ transplant pioneer Joseph Murray passes away

Organ transplant pioneer Joseph Murray passes away

THE death has taken place in the United States of Dr. Joseph Murray, who in 1954 made medical history by performing the first successful human organ transplant. He was 93.

Back in the early 1950s, Dr. Murray was a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and leading a team working to overcome the massive problems surrounding organ transplantation.

Indeed, many in the medical profession viewed their work with extreme scepticism. One of the major problems they faced was the rejection by the body of foreign tissue. Dr. Murray had faced such problems while treating soldiers who had suffered burns in World War II.

Dr. Murray began to examine how the rejection problem could be reduced if tissue from a patient’s twin was used.

In late 1954, 23-year-old Richard Herrick lay dying of kidney disease only miles from the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston where Dr. Murray and his colleagues were based.

Doctors treating Mr. Herrick, who was a twin, contacted the research team asking for help.

It was decided to take the major step of transplanting a kidney from Ronald Herrick to his twin. The operation was carried out on December 23 and was a success. Mr. Herrick gained a new lease of life and was to survive for another eight years.

By 1962, advances had been made in developing drugs which could help suppress the immune response and Dr. Murray was able to perform the first successful organ transplant from an unrelated donor.

He had proved the sceptics wrong and his work ushered in a new era in medicine which today sees thousands of lives being saved each year across the world, thanks to organ transplants.

Recalling the criticism he had originally faced, Dr. Murray said: “If you’re going to worry about what people say, your’re never going to make any progress.”

His pioneering work was recognised in 1990 when he received the Nobel Prize.

Dr. Murray passed away in the same hospital where had made medical history. Now known as the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, he had been admitted to the facility after suffering a stroke.

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