From the 1940’s, pioneering UK  immunologists such as Peter Medawar, Peter Gorer and the American George Snell working on animal models, developed the theories that underpin transplant immunology and the concepts of graft rejection.

Peter Medawar (1915-87) received the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1960 for his seminal work on immunological tolerance in organ transplantation. He studied at Magdalen College in Oxford and carried out his research in the University of Birmingham and University College London. His final role was as director of the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill. His notable doctoral and post-doctoral students included Leslie Brent and Rupert Billingham.

Peter Gorer (1907-61) was a British immunologist, pathologist and geneticist. A graduate of Guy’s Hospital, he studied genetics at University College London, then worked at the Lister Institute in the late 1930s before returning to the pathology department at Guy’s. He described the murine histocompatibility complex (H-2) and   antigen identification in the context of transplant tissue rejection. He was elected FRS in 1960. Gorer also collaborated using animal models with George Snell an American geneticist from Boston  who won the Nobel Prize in 1980.

Since this pioneering work, we now understand the fundamental role that HLA plays in our ability to recognise self from non-self and why in transplant immunology, these polymorphic molecules are the major barrier to successful transplantation.

References

Billingham R, Brent L, Medawar P.  Actively Acquired Tolerance of Foreign Cells. Nature 172, 603–606 (1953).
Gorer P, Lyman S, Snell GD. Studies on the genetic and antigenic basis of tumour transplantation Linkage between a histocompatibility gene and ‘fused’ in mice. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B-Biological Sciences 135.881 (1948): 499-505.

Peter Alfred Gorer, 1907-1961 | Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.1961.0008

Last Updated on June 5, 2026 by John Feehally