DR. PETER MEDAWAR, 72, SHARED NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE IN 1960
Author: Associated Press
Date: Sunday, October 4, 1987
Page: 95
Section: OBITUARY
LONDON -- Dr. Peter Medawar, who shared the 1960 Nobel Prize in medicine,
died in London's Royal Free Hospital after suffering a stroke, British news
media reported yesterday. He was 72.
Dr. Medawar shared the Nobel Prize with Sir F. MacFarlane Bumet of
Melbourne University in Australia for their work on the body's rejection of
tissue transplants. Their discoveries helped pave the way for modern
transplant surgery.
Dr. Medawar was born in Brazil, where his parents were assigned on
business.
He studied at Oxford University, where he earned a degree in zoology and
began his research into the growth of tissues.
The Medical Research Council, which promotes medical research in Britain,
asked Dr. Medawar during World War II to study why skin grafts taken from one
person were rejected when transplanted to another.
His research yielded a substance to reunite severed nerves that became
widely used during skin grafts.
But his major discovery, leading to the Nobel Prize, was to establish
Bumet's theory that the rejection of donor grafts was due to an immunological
reaction and that tolerance can be built up by injections into embryos.
After the war, Dr. Medawar taught at the University of Birmingham and the
University of London.
He headed the National Institute of Medical Research from 1962-1971.
Dr. Medawar was knighted in 1965. In 1981, received the Order of Merit, the
most prestigious of all royal honors.
He leaves his wife, Jean, who also is a scientist and was for many years
chairman of the Family Planning Association, and their four children.
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