Sir Peter Brian Medawar shared the 1960 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Australian, Sir Frank MacFarlane Burnet for discovering that tissue transplantation failed because of immune system rejection and not because of genetic differences, as previously believed. During five years of experiments, Medawar learned that "immunological tolerance" could be produced by grafting cells from one animal into the fetus of another, permitting successful tissue grafts between the two subjects. As the first clear evidence that tissue rejection could be overcome, this discovery opened the door to transplant surgery and the development of complex immunosuppressant drugs which help prevent rejection of transplanted organs.
Medawar, called "a great scientist, a man of great courage, and a great writer," was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His father, who was born in Lebanon, became a naturalized British subject while living in London, England as a paying guest in the home of the Dowling family. There he fell in love with, and ultimately married, their oldest daughter, Muriel. The couple moved to Brazil when he became an agent for a British dental supply company.
The young Medawar left Brazil for England in 1928 where he first attended Marlborough College and then Magdalen College, Oxford where he studied zoology. He received two scholarships in 1935 and became a Fellow of the college in 1938. In 1937, he married fellow undergraduate, Jean Shinglewood Taylor, the daughter of a Cambridge physician, who also became a scientist and who, for many years, was chairwoman of the Family Planning Association. Mrs. Medawar wrote in her book, A Very Decided Preference: Life with Peter Medawar, "I realized quite soon that he was extraordinary and exceptional. Before long, others recognized this, and by the time Peter began his life's work in immunology, his quality had become apparent." The Medawars had two sons and two daughters.
Medawar's early research into tissue culture and nerve regeneration led him to develop a "biological glue" with which severed nerves could be rejoined and which became widely used in skin grafts. His work in immunology began early in World War II when the Medical Research Council requested he investigate why skin taken from a donor would not permanently graft to that of a recipient. In 1944, he became assistant professor of Zoology at St. John College, Oxford and moved to the University of Birmingham in 1947, continuing his investigation into tissue rejection in collaboration with colleagues. For identifying what they called "actively acquired tolerance," (the ability to induce tolerance to foreign tissue by injecting grafts into a fetus), he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1951, he became professor of Zoology at University College in London and received the Royal Medal in 1959. In 1960 he introduced tissue typing which was used for the first time in 1962 for a human kidney transplant. From 1962 until 1971 he was director of London's National Institute for Medical Research which, under his administrative guidance, became world renowned in immunology.
Medawar was a Reith Lecturer for the British Broadcasting Corporation, spoke and lectured in many countries, and was a Foreign Member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. Among many other distinguished awards and honors from around the World he was named by England's Queen Elizabeth II as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1959, was knighted in 1965, and in 1981 was presented the most prestigious of all royal honors--the Order of Merit (OM).
Medawar also gained fame as a prolific and extremely talented writer. His energy, positive outlook, and zest for life endeared him to almost everyone he met. He has been called both a "paragon of rationalism" and a "paragon of humanism." His incredible scientific mind was matched only by his compassion and love of people and passion for life. In 1969, at the age of fifty-four, he suffered a massive and almost fatal stroke while reading the lesson at the annual service of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Exeter Cathedral. After long months in therapy, he could walk with a caliper and walking stick. Although his left arm was paralyzed and half the visual field in both eyes was lost, he continued courageously and enthusiastically to research, write, travel, lecture, and enjoy his family. A second stroke in 1980 left him with slurred speech and wheel-chair bound, and he suffered a third stroke in 1985 shortly after completing his famous autobiography, The Thinking Radish. Of Medawar's spirit, his wife wrote, "He came to be admired as much for his courage after these strokes as he had been for his intellect before them."
This is the complete article, containing 778 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
