History of clinical transplantation

How transplantation came to be a clinical discipline can be pieced together by perusing two volumes of reminiscences collected by Paul I. Terasaki in 1991-1992 from many of the persons who were directly involved. One volume was devoted to the discovery of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), with particular reference to the human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) that are widely used today for tissue matching.1 The other focused on milestones in the development of clinical transplantation.2 All the contributions described in both volumes can be traced back in one way or other to the demonstration in the mid-1940s by Peter Brian Medawar that the rejection of allografts is an immunological phenomenon.3,4 © 2008 Springer New York

The effect of X-rays on phosphorylations in vivo

The incorporation of 32P into ATP and ADP of spleen and thymus was measured shortly after the intravenous administration of radioactive inorganic phosphate to rats. 4 hours after total body X-irradiation with a dose of 700 r, both the specific activity and the relative specific activity of the ADP and ATP of the spleen were significantly decreased. Similar results were obtained with the thymus. These changes may result from an inhibition of the phosphorylation in the irradiated tissues. © 1957

Different types of hæmoglobin in two strains of mice

WHILE studying the therapeutic effect of homologous bone marrow transplantation in irradiated mice we needed a simple and sensitive technique to differentiate between the hæmatopoietic activity of the host and that of the graft. The possibility of employing differences between the hæmoglobins of our two strains of mice (CBA and C57BL) and their hybrid was suggested by the findings of Ranney et al.1,2, who demonstrated two different hæmoglobin patterns in eight inbred strains of mice by using paper electrophoresis. © 1958 Nature Publishing Group