Thomas Gibson (medical doctor)

Thomas Gibson (born November 24, 1915 in Kilbarchan , Scotland ; † February 13, 1993 in Glasgow , Scotland) was a physician and researcher who was known in particular for his work on organ transplantation , immunology and plastic surgery .

Life

Education and family

Thomas Gibson attended school in his native Kilbarchan and Paisley and then studied medicine at the University of Glasgow . He was married and had two sons and two daughters with his wife Pat.

Activity as a doctor

After graduating with honors in 1938, he specialized in the field of surgery . From 1942 to 1944 he worked in this area as an assistant doctor in the fire victim ward of the Royal Hospital in Glasgow. He then entered the military and became a facial surgeon in the medical service of the British Army . In this role, he was first employed in Northern Europe and later as a senior medical officer in India . In 1947 he left the army with the rank of major and returned to the Royal Hospital in Glasgow, this time as a specialist and consultant in plastic and maxillofacial surgery. Even after the transfer of the relevant department to the Canniesburn Hospital in Glasgow in 1970, he retained this position and held it until his retirement in 1980.

In the early 1960s he helped found the Bioengineering Department at the University of Strathclyde . In 1970 he became a visiting professor in this department, and in 1972 the university awarded him an honorary doctorate. Also in 1970 he was elected President of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons. From 1969 to 1979 he was also the editor of the association's official journal. In addition, he was made an honorary member of several national and foreign professional societies.

Scientific work

His scientific achievements include the discovery in 1942 that the rejection of allogeneic transplanted organs , i.e. organs from donors who are not related to the recipient, is based on an antigen-antibody reaction . This prompted the future Nobel Prize winner Peter Medawar to move from Oxford to Glasgow to do research on the immunology of transplants with Gibson. Their joint publication The fate of skin homografts in man ( Journal of Anatomy , 77/1943, pp. 299-310) is regarded as fundamental work in this area, as it was the first to show that the rejection of transplants is based on reactions of the immune system . He published a large number of other papers on immunology, the treatment of burns, oncology , the treatment of the cleft palate and other questions of facial surgery, the biomechanics of the skin and cartilage and the history of plastic surgery.

Web links

• Obituary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (English, PDF file; 24 kB)