First Successful Human Kidney Transplant

The first long-term successful human kidney transplant was performed on 23 December 1954 at Brigham Hospital in Boston by Joseph Murray, J. Hartwell Harrison, John P. Merrill and colleagues. The donor was Ronald Herrick and the recipient was his identical twin Richard, a pairing that avoided the immune rejection that defeated earlier attempts between unrelated people. Earlier tries included a 1933 attempt by Yuriy Voronyi, a 1950 transplant in Illinois by Richard Lawler whose kidney was rejected after ten months, and a 1952 living-donor operation in Paris by Jean Hamburger that failed after three weeks. Murray later described avoiding rejection with radiotherapy and immunosuppressants, and received the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning organ and cell transplantation. Richard Herrick died eight years later, from a cause unrelated to the transplant. Which operation counts as the first success depends on how success is defined. This is a historical record, not medical advice.