2020-04-01 Wed

Joseph Edward Murray was an American plastic surgeon who performed the first successful human kidney transplant on identical twins Richard and Ronald Herrick in 1954.

Murray was born on April 1, 1919, in Milford, Mass (a town 30 miles southwest of Boston). His father was a lawyer and district court judge, and his mother was a school teacher. He completed his surgical residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (later Brigham and Women’s Hospital), Boston, where he began his prizewinning research.

In 1990 he was co-winner (with E. Donnall Thomas) of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work in lifesaving organ- and tissue-transplant techniques. Murray was nominated as a member of the National Academy of Sciences and as a regent of the American College of Surgeons. He was named one of the 350 most outstanding citizens, representing the medical profession, for the City of Boston's 350th anniversary.

Dominica honored him as a Nobel laureate on a commemorative stamp issued in 1995. It depicts an image of Joseph E Murray on the foreground. Name of the country and face value – 2 East Caribbean Dollar stamp can be seen on the top of the stamp.

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Image Source: colnect.com