Thomas E. Starzl

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Thomas Earl Starzl (born March 11, 1926 in Le Mars , Iowa , † March 4, 2017 in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania ) was an American surgeon of German-Irish descent and a pioneer of transplant medicine . In 1963, Starzl carried out the world's first and in 1967 the first successful liver transplant .

Life

Starzl was the son of the newspaper editor and science fiction writer Roman Frederick Starzl (1899-1976) and his wife Anna Laura Starzl (nee Fitzgerald, 1900-1947) in the small town of Le Mars in the American Midwest . He gave up his original intention of becoming a priest when his mother died of breast cancer. Instead, he first studied biology at Westminster College in Fulton , Missouri, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. He then went to Northwestern University in Chicago , where he received his Master of Science degree in anatomy in 1950 and his Ph. D. and MD in neurophysiology in 1952 .

Through his work at Northwestern University, the University of Colorado, and from 1981 at the University of Pittsburgh , Starzl became an internationally recognized expert in transplant medicine. Starzl introduced numerous surgical techniques that significantly improved the patient's long-term survival. In 1963 he performed the world's first liver transplant. The patient, a three-year-old boy with biliary atresia (congenital absence of the bile ducts with intrahepatic backflow of the bile ), however, died during the operation of blood loss as a result of uncontrollable coagulopathy (clotting disorders). It was not until 1967 that he succeeded in the first really successful transplant with a patient survival time of more than a year. In addition, Starzl made a decisive contribution to gaining knowledge about techniques for organ removal and storage, criteria for the selection of suitable transplant recipients and, in particular, the use of immunosuppressants to avoid rejection reactions . The use of the substances cyclosporine , tacrolimus and sirolimus , which is now established in transplant medicine, goes back to Starzl's work . In 1999, according to the Institute for Scientific Information , Starzl was the most cited author of medical publications.

Awards (selection)

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literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Karen Kane, Anita Srikameswaran and Sean Hamill: Thomas Starzl, pioneering transplant surgeon, dies at 90. In: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 5, 2017, accessed March 5, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Maeve Reston: President gives Starzl highest prize. In: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . February 14, 2006.
  3. ^ National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected. ( Memento of August 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Press release of the National Academy of Sciences (nasonline.org) of April 29, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Starzl, Thomas E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Starzl, Thomas Earl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American surgeon and a pioneer in transplant medicine
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Le Mars, Iowa
DATE OF DEATH 4th March 2017
Place of death Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania