Joe Murray Quotes

Post-operatively the transplanted kidney functioned immediately with a dramatic improvement in the patient's renal and cardiopulmonary status.

I moved to Harvard in 1998, and in 2000 the first kidney exchange in the United States was done at a hospital nearby. I started to think, 'Gee, there might be a way where I could help organize it, make it easier for people to find kidneys.'

Kidney transplants seem so routine now. But the first one was like Lindbergh's flight across the ocean.

Post-operatively the transplanted kidney functioned immediately with a dramatic improvement in the patient's renal and cardiopulmonary status. This spectacular success was a clear demonstration that organ transplantation could be life-saving.

My success in transplanting arteries between animals has pioneered surgical techniques that being closer the day when hearts and other organs will be transplanted into humans. No effort should be spared to reach this goal.

The risk from viruses is an unanswered question - and it won't be answered until you have had organs transplanted into humans over many years.

Five to six thousand people die every year waiting for organs, but nobody cares.

You can put a kidney in your body - and somewhere down the line, your body might reject it.

Often people expect I have some touching personal story about kidney disease, but it's actually the mathematics that led me to it.

With Charles Woods, it was the first time I had ever seen tissue from a dead person used to save a human life. It piqued my curiosity.

When you're doing kidney transplants, you have to find out who can exchange kidneys with whom, doing blood tests to make sure it's true. You can't just work on the preliminary data. Then you have to organize the logistics.

As a child, I had no interest in science whatsoever - then I started writing and recognized how relevant it was. My first book about science and medicine captured the world of organ transplantation in 1989 from the points of view of all of the participants - scientists, surgeons, social workers, organ recipients and even donor families.

I was in kidney failure. I ended up having a kidney transplant on my 21st birthday.

In 2003, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and a year later, a national ethics committee in France, said that face transplantation would be going too far. The risk of complication would far outweigh the benefits.

I have removed the spleen from a dog, from cats, and rabbits. In all cases, the animals survived the operation and did not appear to be in the least affected by the absence of the organ.

Stem cells have the potential to be used to treat and better understand some of the world's most deadly and disabling diseases.

There are so many things that go into a surgical study.

It was in 2003 that I realised there was no choice but to have dialysis treatment - by the time of the World Cup that year, I could barely walk. A year later, I finally had a kidney transplant.

I love animals, and I was always attracted to the idea of being a zoo veterinarian or a veterinarian with the circus.

I'm very caring with animals. I think patience is a big deal, because animals are always jumping around. I love to take care of people, so I think I'd be a good vet. I always wanted to be a vet when I was little.

Kidney donors don't have to be close relatives of recipients, but they do need to have the right blood type. And kidneys from living donors tend to last many years longer than kidneys from deceased donors.

In my early teen years, I wanted to become a vet. That was my plan. I worked as a veterinarian's assistant for a couple of summers.

New drugs and surgical techniques offer promise in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, tuberculosis, AIDS, and a host of other life-threatening diseases. Animal research has been, and continues to be, fundamental to advancements in medicine.

Removal of an organ is difficult and dangerous. There have been several deaths of healthy donors. I think myself, I would be hesitant to participate as a liver donor. It's a very tricky operation.

My dad, Donald, was a vet and had a practice in Yorkshire. Cats and dogs were his bread and butter, but his greatest love was large animals.