Technology & Medicine › Atomic & space age
Organ transplants
kidney December 1954 (Murray); heart December 1967 (Barnard)· Invention or discovery· Medicine & surgery
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Organ transplants replace a failing kidney, liver, heart or lung with a healthy one from a living or deceased donor.
See it on the Technology & Medicine map →How it works
On December 23, 1954, Joseph Murray's team in Boston moved a kidney from Ronald Herrick into his identical twin Richard, avoiding rejection, the immune attack on foreign tissue. Drugs that suppress rejection, starting with azathioprine in the early 1960s, allowed unrelated donors. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant in Cape Town in December 1967. Cyclosporine (US approval 1983) made transplants far more successful. Today about 170,000 are done worldwide each year.
Why it mattered
Transplants save tens of thousands of lives a year, but donor organs remain scarce: more than 100,000 people are on the US waiting list alone.
How we know
Published case reports and hospital records, Murray's 1990 Nobel Prize, and national and global registries that track every transplant and its survival rate.
Still unknown or debated
Whether gene-edited pig organs can close the donor gap is now being tested; rules on brain death and paying donors are still debated ethically.
Connections (3)
▸Surgical anesthesia (ether) made possible Organ transplantsWell documented
The connection
A transplant means hours of delicate work deep inside the body, impossible on a conscious patient. Ether anesthesia, shown publicly in 1846, made long operations bearable. Later anesthetic drugs, breathing machines and monitoring let surgeons keep patients stable through transplant operations that can last many hours.
When and how
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 1846 (Morton's ether demonstration); Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, 1954 (first successful kidney transplant).
How we know
Surgical history is clear that major internal surgery depended on anesthesia; early transplant case reports describe the anesthetic methods used.
Debates and open questions
Anesthesia was necessary but not sufficient: antiseptic technique, blood transfusion and anti-rejection drugs mattered as much, so how to weigh each is a matter of emphasis.
▸Blood types and transfusion made possible matching for Organ transplantsMostly agreed
The connection
Landsteiner's 1901 discovery of the A, B and O blood groups showed that the immune system attacks mismatched cells. Transplant teams match blood groups between donor and recipient, and later tissue types too. Blood banks and transfusion also let surgeons replace the heavy blood loss of long transplant operations.
When and how
Vienna, 1901 (Karl Landsteiner); Chicago's first hospital blood bank, 1937; Jean Dausset's discovery of tissue types in Paris, 1958.
How sure are we?
Transplant protocols require blood-group compatibility; Landsteiner (1930) and Dausset (1980) won Nobel Prizes, Dausset for work that underpins transplant matching.
Debates and open questions
Blood-group barriers can now sometimes be crossed with antibody-removing treatments; how far mismatched transplants can safely go is still being studied.
▸CRISPR gene editing now edits pig organs for Organ transplantsWell documented
The connection
Pig organs are about the right size, but human immune systems reject them and pig DNA carries dormant viruses. CRISPR lets scientists make dozens of edits at once: removing pig sugar molecules that trigger rejection, adding human genes, and disabling the viruses. Several living patients received gene-edited pig kidneys in 2024–25.
When and how
eGenesis, a Massachusetts company, bred pigs with 69 edits; Massachusetts General Hospital transplanted one kidney into Richard Slayman in March 2024; more patients followed in 2024–25.
How we know
Published case reports and US FDA clearance of the first formal clinical trials in 2025; one patient lived about nine months with a pig kidney before its removal.
Debates and open questions
Long-term results are unknown: early recipients died or had organs removed within months, and whether hidden pig viruses pose risks is still being studied.