Joseph Murray, transplant pioneer

Yesterday, the scientific community lost a true pioneer . . . Joseph Murray, who pioneered skin grafting and developed the first successful organ transplant.  In 1954, he transplanted a kidney from one adult twin to his identical sibling.  He continued to pioneer transplant techniques that have saved countless lives.

In The Human Body in Health & Disease and Structure & Function of the Body, I wrote this about Murray:

"In the twentieth century, Joseph Murray . . . noticed that skin he grafted onto burned soldiers he treated during World War II would eventually be rejected by the body. After the war, Murray tried to understand the body’s immune reactions to transplanted tissues and his work led to the first successful kidney transplants. His breakthroughs in transplanting kidneys not only earned him a Nobel Prize in 1990, it also paved the way for all the different types of tissue and organ transplantation that we see today."

93-year-old Joseph E. Murray suffered a stroke on Thanksgiving day and died yesterday in Boston.

I think the occasional story of a pioneer in the history of human science adds a lot to the A&P course.  Such stories give a human dimension to the pursuit of science and provide the context needed for students to understand how we know what we know.

Today we have a sad but important occasion to bring up the amazing accomplishments of Joseph E. Murray with our students.

Want to know more?

• Joseph E. Murray, Transplant Doctor and Nobel Prize Winner, Dies at 93
• By CORNELIA DEAN
• The New York Times Published online: November 27, 2012
• [Obituary of Murray]
• my-ap.us/Tjwvn7

• Hope, Innovation: Remembering A Transplant Pioneer
• Renee Montagne
• National Public Radio (NPR) Morning Edition Broadcast/published online November 27, 2012
• [Renee Montagne talks with Dr. Atul Gawande about the life and work of Dr. Joseph E. Murray, who performed the first successful organ transplant in 1954. Murray died Monday at age 93.]
• Text my-ap.us/SbAjZ3
• Audio[4 min 15 sec] my-ap.us/QJLI5n

http://my-ap.us/QJLI5n

• Interview with Joseph E. Murray
• Nobel Web (nobelprize.org) Accessed 27 November 2012
• [Interview with Joseph E. Murray by Sten Orrenius at the meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany, June 2000. Joseph Murray talks about what led him into research; developing transplantation medicine (2:38); and whether breakthroughs in clinical research are often ignored by the Nobel Prize Committee (13:10).]
• my-ap.us/Y1v8Ro

• Nobel Lecture by Joseph E. Murray
• Nobel Web (nobelprize.org) Accessed 27 November 2012
• [Joseph E. Murray held his Nobel Lecture on 8 December 1990, at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. He was presented by Professor Hans Wigzell of the Karolinska Institutet.]
• my-ap.us/QomBDI

Related textbook content

• Anatomy & Physiology 8th ed.  p. 754, 767, 772-773, 996, A&P Connect: The Nobel Legacy my-ap.us/QZTbK1

• Essentials of Anatomy & Physiology p. 437 my-ap.us/SCfNlj  

• The Human Body in Health and Disease 5th ed. p. 94-95, 154 my-ap.us/fNN00N 

• Structure & Function of the Body 14th ed. p. 102 my-ap.us/X6QxqE

Another posterior pituitary hormone

A recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows that that the posterior pituitary (neurohypophysis ) secretes another hormone besides antidiuretic hormone (ADH; vasopressin) and oxytocin (OT).  It is the hormone secretin.

Secretin is already known to be secreted from the intestinal lining, having a variety of effects in regulating stomach and pancreatic function during the digestive process.  New findings indicate, however, that secretin is also secreted by the posterior pituitary.

Neurohypophysial release of secretin is triggered by plasma hyperosmolality—as in dehydration of the body. Secretin then promotes the expression and release of ADH, which in turn promotes water conservation by the kidney.  Secretin also appears to have direct water-conserving effects in the kidney as well.

Want to know more?

Secretin as a neurohypophysial factor regulating body water homeostasis
Jessica Y. S. Chu, et al. 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science  September 15, 2009 vol. 106 no. 37 15961-15966 
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0903695106
[Abstract of the recent paper.]

Highlights From The Literature
Physiology 2009 24:322-324
doi:10.1152/physiol.00037.2009
[Summary of the significance of this discovery.] 

Click here for a FREE 3D see-through image of the pituitary's location that you can use in your course.

Growing a new prostate

This letter in the 22 October 2008 advanced online issue of of Nature caught my eye . . .

Scientists at Genentech, Inc. have identified an adult stem cell type in the male prostate that can can be transplanted and generate a new prostate in the donor!

Generation of a prostate from a single adult stem cell
Kevin G. Leong, et al.
Nature advance online publication 22 October 2008 | doi:10.1038/nature07427
[Original article; summary is free]

'New prostate' grown inside mouse
BBC News online, accessed 24 October 2008
[Summary of research and its context; cool image of a prostate cancer cell]

Urine luck!

If you discuss urine sediment in your course, you might find the urine sediment images at Cornell's Urine Sediment Atlas interesting and useful.

It's set up for veterinary students primarily, but is very useful for human biology as well.

These might be good for linking to your lectures, labs, case studies, test/quiz items, wallpapering your desktop, whatever.

Check out more image sources at The A&P Professor website!