Thomas Starzl, pioneer of liver transplants, dies at 90

Thomas Starzl performed the world's first liver transplant in 1963 and the world's first successful liver transplant in 1967.

Image credit: UPMC/YouTube

New Delhi: Thomas Starzl, the pioneering American physician who performed the world's first liver transplant, has died at his home in Pittsburgh.

Starzl, who has often been referred to as 'the father of modern transplantation', died peacefully on Saturday, March 4, 2017. He was 90 years of age.

He performed the world's first liver transplant in 1963 and the world's first successful liver transplant in 1967, and pioneered kidney transplantation from cadavers. He later perfected the process by using identical twins and, eventually, other blood relatives as donors.

Since Starzl's first successful liver transplant, thousands of lives have been saved by similar operations.

He was also the driving force behind the world's first baboon-to-human liver transplants and research on anti-rejection drugs.

Starzl's autobiographical memoir, The Puzzle People, was named by The Wall Street Journal as the third best book on doctors' lives.

Starzl was born on March 11, 1926, in Le Mars, Iowa. His father was a newspaper editor and science fiction writer and his mother was a teacher and a nurse.