Born

Edward Donnall Thomas

March 15, 1920

Mart, Texas, United States

Died

October 20, 2012 (aged 92)

Seattle, Washington, United States

Citizenship

American

Alma mater

University of Texas at Austin

Harvard Medical School

Known for

Transplantation

Awards

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,

National Medal of Science in 1990

Scientific career

Fields

Medicine

Institutions

Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital

Notable students

Eloise Giblett

Edward Donnall "Don" Thomas (March 15, 1920 – October 20, 2012)^[1] was an American physician, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, and director emeritus of the clinical research division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In 1990 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Joseph E. Murray for the development of cell and organ transplantation. Thomas and his wife and research partner Dottie Thomas developed bone marrow transplantation as a treatment for leukemia.^[2]

Contents

• 1

• Biography

• 
  

• 2

• Awards and honors

• 
  

• 3

• References

• 
  

• 4

• External links

• 
  

Biography[edit]

Born in Mart, Texas, Thomas often shadowed his father who was a general practice doctor. Later, he attended the University of Texas at Austin where he studied chemistry and chemical engineering, graduating with a B.A. in 1941 and an M. A. in 1943. While Thomas was an undergraduate he met his wife, Dorothy (Dottie) Martin while she was training to be journalist. They had three children. Thomas entered Harvard Medical School in 1943, receiving an M.D. in 1946. Dottie became a lab technician during this time to support the family, and the pair worked closely thereafter. He did his residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital before joining the US Army. "In 1955, he was appointed physician in chief at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, now Bassett Medical Center, in Cooperstown, N.Y., an affiliate of Columbia University." ^[3]

At Mary Imogene Bassett, he began to study rodents that received lethal doses of radiation who were then saved by an infusion of marrow cells. At the time, patients who underwent bone marrow transplantation all died from infections or immune reactions that weren't seen in the rodent studies. Thomas began to use dogs as a model system. In 1963, he moved his lab to the United States Public Health Service in Seattle.^[4]

Thomas also received National Medal of Science in 1990. In 2003 he was one of 22 Nobel laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.^[5]

He died of heart failure and is survived by his three children.^[4] His wife Dottie died in 2015 aged 92.

Awards and honors[edit]

• 1965-1969 Hematology Study Section, National Institutes of Health

• 1969-1973 Member, Board of Trustees and Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee, Leukemia Society of America, Inc.

• 1970-1974 Clinical Cancer Investigation Review Committee, National Cancer Institute

• 1974 First Annual Eugene C. Eppinger Lecture at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Harvard Medical School

• 1975 A. Ross McIntyre Award, University of Nebraska Medical Center

• 1975 The Henry M. Stratton Lecture, American Society of Hematology, Dallas

• 1977 The Lilly Lecture, Royal College of Physicians, London

• 1979 The Philip Levine Award, American Society of Clinical Pathologists, New Orleans

• 1980 American Cancer Society Award for Distinguished Service in Basic Research

• 1981 Kettering Prize of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation for contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer

• 1981 Honorary Doctorate of Medicine, University of Cagliari, Sardinia

• 1981 Special Keynote Address Award, American Society of Therapeutic Radiologists

• 1982 Stratton Lecture, International Society of Hematology

• 1982 Paul Aggeler Lecturer, University of California, San Francisco

• 1983 David A. Karnofsky Memorial Lecturer, Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology

• 1983 Robert Roesler de Villiers Award, Leukemia Society of American

• 1984 Sixty-fifth Mellon Lecturer, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, May 13

• 1985 Stanley Wright Memorial Lecturer, Annual Meeting of the Western Society for Pediatric Research

• 1987 Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Blood Banks,

• 1987-1988 President, American Society of Hematology

• 1989 Elected Corresponding Member, Academie Royale de Medecine de Belgigue

• 1990 Terry Fox Award, Canada

• 1990 Gairdner Foundation International Award

• 1990 North American Medical Association of Hong Kong Prize

• 1990 Nobel Prize in Medicine

• 1990 Presidential Medal of Science

• 1991 Adolfo Ferrata Lecture, Italian Society of Hematology, Verona, Italy

• 1991 Honorary Doctorate of Medicine, University of Verona

• 1992 Kober Medal, American Association of Physicians

• 1992 Honorary Member, The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada

• 1992 Honorary Doctorate of Medicine, University of Parma

• 1993 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement^[6]

• 1994 Honorary Member, National Academia of Medicine

• 1994 Honorary Degree, University of Barcelona

• 1996 Honorary Degree, University of Warsaw

• 1998 Medal of Merit, State of Washington

References[edit]

• ^ Frederick R. Appelbaum. Perspective: E. Donnall Thomas (1920–2012) Science 338(6111):1163, 30 November 2012

• ^ Park, B; Yoo, KH; Kim, C (December 2015). "Hematopoietic stem cell expansion and generation: the ways to make a breakthrough". Blood Research. 50 (4): 194–203. doi:10.5045/br.2015.50.4.194. PMC 4705045. PMID 26770947. Dr. Donnall Thomas, who received Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in bone marrow transplantation to cure leukemia and other hematologic malignancies, must be recognized and apprised as human endeavor to cure previously incurable diseases.

• ^ "E. Donnall Thomas, Who Advanced Bone Marrow Transplants, Dies at 92". The New York Times. October 24, 2012.

• ^

• Jump up to:

• ^{a b} Storb, R. (2012). "Edward Donnall Thomas (1920–2012)". Nature. 491 (7424): 334. Bibcode:2012Natur.491..334S. doi:10.1038/491334a. PMID 23151572.

• ^ "Notable Signers". Humanism and Its Aspirations. American Humanist Association. Retrieved October 4, 2012.

• ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.

External links[edit]

• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Nobel Prize: The Don and Dottie Story

• E. Donnall Thomas on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture 8 December 1990 Bone Marrow Transplantation - Past, Present and Future

Edward Donnall (Don) Thomas has been called the father of bone-marrow transplantation. Until the 1970s, every reported human marrow transplant had failed, and prominent immunologists declared that the barriers between individuals could never be crossed. Thomas persisted and eventually succeeded, sharing a Nobel prize for the feat in 1990. Since 1969, around one million patients with otherwise fatal blood disorders have received bone-marrow transplants.

Thomas died on 20 October 2012, aged 92, of heart failure. He was born in Mart, Texas, and his father was a general practice doctor, whom he often accompanied on house calls. Thomas received his bachelor's and master's degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin in 1941 and 1943, respectively. In 1942, he married fellow student Dorothy (Dottie) Martin. She helped to manage his research and papers throughout his career — the late George Santos of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, once said: “If Dr Thomas is the father of bone-marrow transplantation, then Dottie Thomas is the mother.” The couple had three children, two of whom are physicians.

Edward Donnall Thomas Credit: COURTESY OF DOTTIE THOMAS

In 1946, Thomas received his MD degree from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, followed by residency training at the city's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and then service in the US Army. In 1950, he returned to the area as a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and then as chief resident and instructor in medicine at Harvard.

In 1955, Thomas was appointed physician-in-chief at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, New York. Here he became fascinated by the discovery that rodents given a lethal dose of radiation could be rescued by an intravenous infusion of marrow cells from a donor. In 1957, Thomas treated a patient with leukaemia using high doses of total-body irradiation to wipe out the cancer, and then gave them an infusion of marrow cells from an identical twin. The transplant was at first successful, although the patient later died from a recurrence of the leukaemia.

Meanwhile, the medical literature was charting numerous cases of patients with blood disorders who had been treated using marrow transplantation from healthy family members. All the patients died from infections or severe immune reactions that were not predicted from studies in inbred rodents. Many investigators left the field, pronouncing it a dead end

Thomas did not give up. In 1957 he began experimenting in dogs. Like humans, dogs have unusual phenotypic diversity, a well-mixed gene pool and can develop haematological diseases, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In late 1963, Thomas set up his laboratory at the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) Hospital in Seattle, which was affiliated to the University of Washington's medical school.

When I joined his small band of scientists in 1965 as a research fellow, transplantation was not a widely known concept. Indeed, the university's print shop once produced letterhead stationery for us that read “Division of Hematology and Transportation”. A remarkable thing about Thomas's leadership style was that he was happy to give people like me a free hand in innovating, as long as it helped the patients.

Under Thomas's guidance, we spent the 1960s developing high-intensity irradiation treatments to eradicate patients' cancer cells and establishing the importance of tissue matching for transplant outcome. To control and treat graft-versus-host disease, we developed drug combinations to suppress the immune system and produced antibodies against human lymphocytes — which once involved a 1.5-hour chase of an antibody-producing horse. Our total-body irradiation sources were set up in a Second World War underground bunker.

Work with patients began in 1969 at the USPHS hospital. Initial survival rates were low, and unexpected problems required going back and forth between bench and bedside — something that remained a hallmark of Thomas's work. By 1979, after performing a number of transplants, we were able to describe a phenomenon called graft-versus-tumour effects, in which donor lymphocytes help to eliminate residual malignant cells. There are patients who received transplants in 1971 still alive today.

Progress has been slow but steady. Early marrow donors were siblings. In 1979, the first patient with leukaemia was successfully treated with a transplant from an unrelated donor using new immunosuppressant drugs. This success sparked Thomas and others to set up international marrow-donor programmes. Transplant outcomes have improved, with survival rates for some diseases, such as aplastic anaemia, close to 95%.

In 1972, the US government closed the USPHS hospital. This prompted the founding of the private Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (the Hutch), with close ties to the University of Washington's medical school. Thomas headed the medical oncology divisions at both.

Over the years, Thomas's team trained hundreds of young investigators. As one of them put it: “Virtually every major transplant centre in the world got its start by sending someone to train under Don Thomas.” Owing to his influence, the Hutch's clinical focus has always been the patient, and its approach, one of teamwork. After retiring in 1989, Thomas continued writing manuscripts, lecturing and serving as an ambassador for the place.

Besides science, Don and Dottie had a passion for fishing and hunting, the fruits of which they shared at intimate dinners with colleagues and friends at their modest home. Reserved, hardworking and uncompromising, Thomas generously attributed much of his success to colleagues, nurses, support staff, patients and their families.

Author information

Affiliations

Rainer Storb is at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and at the University of Washington, both in Seattle.

Rainer Storb