Starzl, Thomas

Starzl, Thomas (Earl)

(1926– ) surgeon; born in Le Mars, Iowa. At the University of Colorado School of Medicine (1962–80) and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (1981), he advanced organ transplantation by perfecting both the surgical techniques and the drugs to suppress the body's rejection of transplants. Controversial because of his willingness to take risks and make claims that more conservative surgeons shied away from, he performed the first successful human liver transplant (1963), and the first baboon liver transplantation (1992). His autobiography is titled The Puzzle People: Memoirs of a Transplant Surgeon (1992).