Peter Medawar
Sir Peter Brian Medawar (February 28, 1915 – October 2, 1987) was a Brazilian-born English scientist best known for his work on how the immune system rejects or accepts organ transplants. He was co-winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet.
Early years
Medawar was born on February 28, 1915, in Rio de Janeiro of a British mother and a Lebanese father.
Early research
His involvement with transplant research began in 1949, when Burnet advanced the hypothesis that during embryonic life and immediately after birth, cells gradually acquire the ability to distinguish between their own tissue substances and unwanted cells and foreign material.
Outcome of Research
Medawar was awarded his Nobel Prize in 1960 with Burnet for their work in tissue grafting which is the basis of organ transplants and their discovery of acquired immunological tolerance. This work was used in dealing with skin grafts required after burns. Medawar's work resulted in a shift of emphasis in the science of immunology from one that attempts to deal with the fully developed immunity mechanism to one that attempts to alter the immunity mechanism itself, as in the attempt to suppress the body's rejection of organ transplants.
Achievements
Medawar was professor of zoology at the University of Birmingham (1947-51) and University College London (1951-62). In 1962 he was appointed director of the National Institute for Medical Research, and became professor of experimental medicine at the Royal Institution (1977-83), and president of the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (1981-87). Medawar was a scientist of great inventiveness who was interested in many other subjects including opera, philosophy and cricket. He was a writer of great fluency, clarity and wit. His books are among the very best examples of a great scientist explaining the beauty and meaning of science in a manner valuable to fellow scientists as well as to laymen. His books include The Art of the Soluble, a book of essays, some later reprinted in Pluto's Republic, Advice to a Young Scientist, Aristotle to Zoos (with his wife Jean Shinglewood Taylor), The Life Science, and his last, in 1986, Memoirs of a Thinking Radish, a brief autobiography. He was knighted in 1965 and awarded the Order of Merit in 1981. Medawar died in 1987 as the result of a series of several cerebrovascular accidents. He is buried - as is his wife Jean (1913-2005) - at Alfriston in East Sussex. Jean Medawar's obituary can be found at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050512/ai_n14623720
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