In December 1954, Dr Murray made history when he transplanted a kidney between identical twins. He learned his craft during World War II, treating badly burned soldiers. By performing skin grafts on troops, he realized the biggest obstacle in the procedure was the immune system’s rejection of foreign tissue.
Working at Boston‘s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, he and colleagues managed to transplant kidneys on dogs. Using the new surgical techniques, he took the healthy kidney of 23-year-old Ronald Herrick and transplanted it into his identical twin, Richard, who had kidney failure. Richard lived another eight years.
In 1962, with the arrival of drugs to suppress the immune response, he completed the first successful organ transplant from an unrelated donor. His work led to hundreds of thousands of transplants in America alone and sparked an ongoing ethical debate.
Dr Murray was a deeply religious man. He told the Harvard University Gazette in 2001: “Work is a prayer. And I start off every morning dedicating it to our Creator.” He passed away on Monday at the facility - now called Brigham and Women’s Hospital - where he made medical history. He had suffered a stroke on Thursday night at his suburban Boston home, hospital spokesman Tom Langford told the Associated Press.
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