Work on Transplants Nets 2 Americans a Nobel

Two Americans--one who performed the first successful kidney transplant and one who pioneered bone marrow transplants--won the Nobel Prize in medicine today.

Joseph E. Murray, 71, discovered how to master the problem of organ rejection and, in 1954, made the first successful organ transplant, a kidney from one identical twin to another that functioned for 24 years.

The work of E. Donnall Thomas, 70, lessened the severe reaction that bone marrow transplants can cause in the recipients. His work led to a cure for leukemia in 50% of cases, and in 80% of childhood cases.

“This year’s laureates paved the way for transplantation in man,” said the award citation from the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute.

Bone marrow transplants are now used to treat a variety of cancers and inherited diseases, and researchers are investigating their potential use in AIDS and other diseases.

The award citation said Murray “pioneered transplantation of kidneys obtained from deceased persons. . . . The field was then open for transplantation of other organs, such as liver, pancreas and heart.”

Murray, who is affiliated with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, was in San Francisco for a medical conference when he heard he had won.

“The thing about this that’s marvelous is that Don and I both were in Brigham Hospital together,” said Murray, a native of Milford, Mass.

“He was a resident in medicine, and I was a resident in surgery. This was after World War II. We both started working in transplants together, but from different angles. It’s marvelous to share it with him.”

Thomas said this morning from his home in Bellevue, Wash., that he had always thought his work was too clinical to win the prize.

There have been 142 medicine prizes since the award was first given in 1901.

Americans have dominated the prize, winning or sharing it 69 times.