THOMAS STARZL

Transplant Pioneer

Thomas Starzl has worked to improve the outcomes of liver, kidney, pancreas, and mutliple organ transplantation. In 1992, a liver transplant was made from a baboon to a human, a medical breakthrough which promises to help proposed organ recipients deal with the chronic shortage of donors. The Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has made many notable strides in transplantation research, including the anti-rejection drug FK506, first used in 1989. Today it is the world's largest transplant program.

Thomas Starzl was born in 1926 in LeMars, Iowa. He received his bachelor's degree in biology from Westminster College in Fulton, MO., his master's degree, Ph.D. and an M.D. from Northwestern University in Chicago, and did postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. He was Professor of Surgery at the University of Colorado, and in 1981 went to the University of Pittsburgh. Starzl performed the world's first liver transplant in 1963, and the first heart and liver transplant in 1984. In 1990 he became Director of the Transplant Institute at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which later was named in his honor.

Today, Starzl continues as director of the Transplant Institute, working on immunology and other aspects of transplant medicine. He also serves on the boards of many medical and scientific organizations, and has received many awards.