Murray, organ transplant pioneer, receives 2005 Laetare Medal

Published: 2005-05-18

NOTRE DAME, Ind. (CNS) -- Dr. Joseph Murray, the Nobel laureate who performed the first successful organ transplant 51 years ago, received the University of Notre Dame's 2005 Laetare Medal during commencement ceremonies May 15. "Human lives and hopes have been wonderfully invigorated by Joseph Murray's 1954 medical triumph," said Notre Dame's president, Holy Cross Father Edward Malloy, in announcing Murray would receive the award. Murray first became interested in the biology of tissue and organ transplantation while he was a surgeon at the U.S. Army's Valley Forge General Hospital in Philadelphia in 1944-47. The hospital had a major plastic surgery center to treat casualties from World War II. On Dec. 23, 1954, at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, then called Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Murray successfully transplanted a donated kidney from a man to his identical twin brother. In 1990, Murray, along with E. Donnall Thomas, received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for work in lifesaving techniques used in organ and tissue transplants.

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