BOSTON DOCTOR SHARES NOBEL FOR MEDICINE
TRANSPLANT WORK CITED

Author: By David L. Chandler, Globe Staff

Date: Tuesday, October 9, 1990
Page: 1
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN

Joseph E. Murray, 71, of Wellesley, professor emeritus of plastic surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and E. Donnall Thomas, 70, of Bellevue, Wash., received the honor for their work during the 1950s and 1960s on how to reduce the risk of organ rejection by the body's immune system. The two will share a prize worth about $700,000.

Murray performed the world's first successful organ transplant -- a kidney
from one identical twin to another -- at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital on Dec. 23, 1954.

Two years later, Thomas was the first to perform a successful transplant of bone marrow, which he achieved by administering a drug that prevented rejection.

While the two carried out their prize-winning work independently, they both are graduates of Harvard Medical School and did their medical residencies at the same time at the Brigham Hospital.

"We're close friends," Murray said yesterday in a telephone interview
from California, where he is visiting family. "It's marvelous. Sharing it with him has doubled the pleasure."

The two doctors made discoveries that "have enabled the development of organ and cell transplantation into a method for the treatment of human disease," said the Nobel Assembly in its citation for the prize. "Murray's and Thomas' discoveries are crucial for those tens of thousands of severely ill patients who either can be cured or given a decent life when other methods of treatment are without success."

By using an identical twin as the donor in the first successful kidney transplant, Murray eliminated the problem of having the body reject the organ as "foreign" tissue. He later found that organs from unrelated donors could be successfully transplanted by exposing the recipient to radiation, which helps prevent the body's immune system from attacking the new tissue.

Later, he began using drugs instead of radiation to suppress the immune system.

Thomas' work dealt with a different but closely related problem, the tendency of implanted tissue to attack the body into which it is transferred.

"They tackled the problem from opposite directions," said Gosta Gahrton of the Nobel awards committee.

Thomas, who is director of clinical research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, found that a drug could prevent the reaction and that bone marrow cells injected into the bloodstream could reconstitute the patient's bone marrow and produce new blood cells. The method has become a standard treatment for leukemia, severe anemia and other blood disorders.

When the two doctors began their work, there was widespread skepticism in the medical community about the possibility of transplanting organs or bone marrow.

"I am impressed by the way they had the courage to continue when other scientists said it was impossible," said Gahrton, according to wire service reports.

Murray and his wife arrived in California late Sunday night to visit a daughter and found out about the award early yesterday morning.

At 4:30 a.m., Murray said, "my daughter came in and said, 'Daddy, I hate to wake you up, but I got the good news that you won the Nobel Prize,' and I thought she was spoofing me, because she had that wonderful look on her face."

Murray, who was born in Milford, said the word arrived through a circuitous grapevine: An inlaw in South Carolina heard the news on the radio and called Murray's son in Marion; the son called one of Murray's daughters in Wellesley, and she called the daughter in California.

"I still can't believe it," Murray said, adding that he had been nominated several times before.

Two years ago, George Hitchings and Gertrude Elion received the award for their work in developing chemical immune suppression methods to allow transplants.

Murray, who had worked on the project with Hitchings and Elion at Brigham and at Harvard Medical School, said he "was thrilled" when they received the prize, but that he did not expect any more prizes for transplantation.

"So I was totally flabbergasted," Murray said. "I just never dreamed that I'd be put up again."

One of Murray's daughters, Virginia Boyle of Wellesley, described him as a ''very religious person." He reads widely, is an "eternal optimist" and ''appreciates the simple things of life," she said.

Thomas said he was told the news when he was awakened by a reporter's telephone call early yesterday morning.

"I really thought this work was too clinical to ever win the prize," Thomas told the Associated Press. "There are many scientist-researchers out there who are eligible for this prize."

He added, "I think it's a recognition of a lot of work by a lot of people who have worked on the problems over the years. . . . It's been very gratifying to see the procedure become accepted as the primary form of treatment for leukemia."

CHANDL;10/08 NKELLY;10/10,11:55 NOBEL09