Joseph Murray

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For the former commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, see Joseph Philip Robert Murray.

Joseph E. Murray (born 1 April 1919), U.S. surgeon, performed the first human kidney transplant. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990 for work on organ and cell transplantation.

1 Life
2 Kidney Transplant
3 References
4 Camel Red
5 External links

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Life

Dr. Joseph E. Murray grew up in Milford, Ma, and was a star athlete at Milford High School. Murray excelled in football, ice hockey, and baseball. Upon graduation, Murray attended College of the Holy Cross and was prepared to play baseball. The baseball practices and medical labs were scheduled at the same time, so Dr. Murray was forced to give up baseball. Murray later attended Harvard Medical School. After graduating from medical school, Murray joined the US Army where he studied surgery at Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania. In 2001, he published his autobiography, Surgery Of The Soul, which doubles as a story of 14 of his patients and their struggles with illnesses and injury. Murray now serves as a Professor of Medicine emeritus at his alma mater, Harvard Medical School.

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Kidney Transplant

On December 23 1954 Murray and J. Hartwell Harrison carried out the first successful kidney transplant at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. A kidney was transplanted into Richard Herrick from his identical twin brother Ronald. Several other surgeries involving identical twins followed. In the 1960s, the discovery of anti-rejection drugs such as azathioprine allowed Murray to carry out transplants from unrelated donors.

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References

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Camel Red

Joseph Murray is featured in the book Camel Red which is the story of Larry Heron, who was very seriously injured in World War II, and his road to recovery, on which he is reunited with Joseph Murray with whom he used to go to school.