Renowned Surgeon Visits NJMS

Thomas E. Starzl, MD, PhD, often described as the "father of liver transplantation," spoke to a full house at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School on Wednesday, October 18, when he delivered the first annual John H. Siegel Distinguished Lectureship. He was introduced by Siegel, professor of anatomy, cell biology and injury science and professor of surgery at NJMS, who has known the surgeon for more than 30 years.

Starzl performed the world's first successful liver transplant in 1967 while at the University of Colorado. Among his many contributions to the field was his theory that organ rejection could be controlled by using the steroid prednisone as a supplement to immunosuppressant drugs. The theory proved successful, greatly improving the outcome of organ transplantation.

In 1981, Starzl joined the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and for the next 10 years served as chief of transplantation services of the largest transplant program in the world. In 1986, he and his research team began their work on the anti-rejection agent FK506. Since then, the drug has been used in 5,000 transplant surgeries performed at the Institute. In 1996, the University of Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute was renamed in Starzl's honor, and he remained as its director until 1996.

To date, Starzl has published 2,129 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He addressed the NJMS audience on the mystique of transplantation tolerance, his current major research interest. He is looking at the requirements to allow true homograft and zenograft chimerism as the mechanism for immune tolerance. Chimerism refers to the coexistence of donor and recipient cells. Starzl's work has already helped unravel the perplexities of transplant immunology.