Three well-known names in transplantation are the cowinners of the prestigious King Faisal International Prize for Medicine for 2001.
The prize was announced in December and was scheduled to be awarded in a ceremony in Saudi Arabia in mid February. The winners will split a $200,000 cash endowment, and each will receive a commemorative 24-carat, 200-gram gold medal.
The winners, each known for pioneering work in the field of transplantation, include Americans Thomas E. Starzl, MD, PhD, and Norman E. Shumway, MD, PhD; and Briton Sir Roy Calne, FRCS, FRC.
* Dr. Starzl, professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, performed the world’s first liver transplant in 1963 at the University of Colorado. In 1962 and 1963, he introduced the concept of incorporating corticosteroids into the immunosuppression drug regimen for patients receiving kidney transplants from nonidentical living donors. His more recent discoveries about transplant tolerance "have completely changed the face and conventional paradigms of transplant immunology, particularly with respect to how and why organs are accepted," University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said.
* Dr. Shumway, a professor of cardiovascular surgery and heart transplant surgeon at Stanford University in California, "is considered to be the father of heart transplantation," said the King Faisal Foundation’s website. The foundation said that the first human heart transplant "was based entirely on Professor Shumway’s work." He also is credited with the first successful transplantation of the heart and both lungs.
* Dr. Calne, emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Cambridge in England, is known for pioneering experimental and clinical research on the use of immunosuppressive drugs. His work "paved the way for heart, lung, liver, pancreas, and kidney transplantation to become standard procedures," the website said. He also pioneered the use of monoclonal antibodies to prevent graft rejection and made the seminal discovery that liver transplantation is of itself immunosuppressive.
For Your Information:
See these pages at the King Faisal Foundation’s website: www.kff.com/winners/2001/2001winners.htm and www.kff.com/winners/2001/Medicine-English.htm.
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