To view the Transplant Timeline click
here. (pdf format)
500
BC According to Chinese legend, doctor Pien Ch’iao
performs a dual-heart transplant on warriors Gong Hu
and Qi Ying 1742 Swiss Abraham Trembley successfully
transplants tissue between hydras 1920 In France, Dr
Serge Voronoff pioneers a technique of grafting monkey
testicles onto humans. He performs an estimated 500
such procedures on the rich and foolish before he’s
pressured to stop by colleagues in the early 1930s 1944
Sir Peter Medawar first discovers the immune system
is to blame for the failure of all previous organ transplant
experiments 1955 Torontonian Dr Gordon Murray performs
the first heart valve transplant; the heart valve keeps
working for over 8 years 1963 Dr James Hardy attempts
the first human lung transplant; the recipient dies
the same night 1964 Dr Starzl next tries to transplant
six baboon kidneys into humans. Most of the patients
die soon after but one lives 98 days 1967 South African
surgeon Dr Christian Barnard performs the first successful
human heart transplant. The patient only lives another
18 days, but it is pneumonia that kills him — the
heart was still working 1969 In the first successful
temporary artificial heart implant, Dr Denton Cooley
of Houston uses the ‘Liotta Total Artificial Heart’
to keep a patient alive until a donor heart becomes
available three days later 1979 Dr David Sutherland
performs the first living-donor partial pancreas transplant.
(The first ever pancreas transplant was performed at
the same University of Minnesota lab in 1966) 1982 Dr
William DeVries implants the first permanent artificial
heart (called the ‘Jarvik-7’) into Barney
Clark of Salt Lake City. Mr Clark lives 112 days after
the procedure 1984 A baboon heart is transplanted into
15-month-old ‘baby Faye;’ it works for 20
days 2003 After an intense 14-hour procedure, Dr Christian
Kermer and Dr Franz Watzinger of Vienna’s General
Hospital successfully transplant a tongue into a patient.
While taste isn’t restored and the recipient can’t
move the tongue on his own, he is soon able to swallow
liquid
200
AD Hua Tuo, another legendary Chinese physician, performs
therapeutic organ transplants 1901-1903 Austrian Dr
Karl Landsteiner discovers the ABO blood classifications
1936 Russian Dr Voronoy performs the first human kidney
transplant; the recipient survives four days 1954 Dr
Joseph E Murray performs the first successful kidney
transplant in Boston, transplanting Ronald Herrick’s
kidney into his twin brother Richard. Richard marries
his nurse and lives another eight years 1958 Dr Jean
Dausset discovers the antigen, HLA-A2, which will make
it easier to work with organs of different blood types
1963 Colorado-based Dr Thomas E Starzl attempts the
first human liver transplant but the patient quickly
rejects the new organ 1964 Dr James Hardy tries using
a chimpanzee heart in a case where the patient’s
heart had failed and no human donor was available. It
only works for 90 minutes 1967 Dr Starzl jumps previous
hurdles and performs the first successful liver transplant
1977 The immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine is introduced
by Dr Jean Borel. The discovery comes out of his studies
of the fungus Beauveria nivea, native to Norwegian mud
1981 Stanford surgeon Dr Bruce Reitz successfully performs
a heart-lung transplant using cyclosporine (then still
in testing) as an anti-rejection drug 1983 Toronto General
Hospital surgeon, Dr Joel Cooper, successfully transplants
a lung in a 58-year-old man, who lives another six years
1986 Canada’s Dr Joel Cooper strikes again, performing
the breathtaking (or breath-giving) first-ever double-lung
transplant. The patient dies of an unrelated illness
15 years later
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