Peter Medawar
Bath Rd, Marlborough SN8 1PA, United Kingdom
Peter Medawar attended Marlborough College.
Oxford OX1 4AU, United Kingdom
Peter Medawar attended Magdalen College.
1960
Five winners of the 1960 Nobel Prize stand together at the ceremony in Stockholm. They include Willard F. Libby of the United States, winner of the Chemistry award; Professor Peter Brian Medawar of Britain, and Sir Frank MacFarlane Burnet of Australia, co-winners of the award for Medicine; Donald A. Glaser of the United States, winner of the Physics award; and St John Perse of France, winner of the Literature award.
1960
Professor Peter Brian Medawar, 45, of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College London, who has been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine jointly with Professor Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, of Australia. He was awarded for the discovery of Acquired Immunological Tolerance.
1960
Sir Peter Brian Medawar, professor of zoology and comparative anatomy, works at a microscope at University College London. He was the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960 for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance.
1960
London, United Kingdom
British immunologist, Dr. Peter Medawar, sits in his laboratory at London's University College as the winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize for his pioneer studies of the human immune system.
1960
British immunologist, Dr. Peter Medawar, sits in his library as the winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize for his pioneer studies of the human immune system.
1982
Honorary degree recipients of the 1982 Harvard University Commencement pose together in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 10, 1982. Seated, from left, are composer Virgil Thomson, Boston College President J. Donald Monan, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, physician, and Harvard Medical School Professor Emeritus Dr. Maxwell Finland, and Nobel Prize-winning zoologist Sir Peter Medawar.
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
1960
Five winners of the 1960 Nobel Prize stand together at the ceremony in Stockholm. They include Willard F. Libby of the United States, winner of the Chemistry award; Professor Peter Brian Medawar of Britain, and Sir Frank MacFarlane Burnet of Australia, co-winners of the award for Medicine; Donald A. Glaser of the United States, winner of the Physics award; and St John Perse of France, winner of the Literature award.
1960
Professor Peter Brian Medawar, 45, of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College London, who has been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine jointly with Professor Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, of Australia. He was awarded for the discovery of Acquired Immunological Tolerance.
1960
Sir Peter Brian Medawar, professor of zoology and comparative anatomy, works at a microscope at University College London. He was the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960 for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance.
1960
London, United Kingdom
British immunologist, Dr. Peter Medawar, sits in his laboratory at London's University College as the winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize for his pioneer studies of the human immune system.
1960
British immunologist, Dr. Peter Medawar, sits in his library as the winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize for his pioneer studies of the human immune system.
1982
Honorary degree recipients of the 1982 Harvard University Commencement pose together in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 10, 1982. Seated, from left, are composer Virgil Thomson, Boston College President J. Donald Monan, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, physician, and Harvard Medical School Professor Emeritus Dr. Maxwell Finland, and Nobel Prize-winning zoologist Sir Peter Medawar.
Oxford OX1 4AU, United Kingdom
Peter Medawar attended Magdalen College.
Bath Rd, Marlborough SN8 1PA, United Kingdom
Peter Medawar attended Marlborough College.
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
(To those interested in a life in science, Sir Peter Medaw...)
To those interested in a life in science, Sir Peter Medawar, Nobel laureate, deflates the myths of invincibility, superiority, and genius; instead, he demonstrates it is common sense and an inquiring mind that are essential to the scientist's calling.
https://www.amazon.com/Advice-Young-Scientist-Alfred-Foundation/dp/0465000924/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Peter+Medawar&qid=1609414550&sr=8-3
1981
(This is a superb collection of essays by a Nobel Prize-wi...)
This is a superb collection of essays by a Nobel Prize-winner in medicine who was also one of the best popular writers on science in recent times. Pluto's Republic contains the essays in two previous collections, The Art of the Soluble and The Hope of Progress, both currently out of print.
https://www.amazon.com/Plutos-Republic-Incorporating-Scientific-paperbacks/dp/0192830392/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=Peter+Medawar&qid=1609414550&sr=8-4
1984
(In this brief, brilliant book the Nobel laureate explores...)
In this brief, brilliant book the Nobel laureate explores the nature and limitations of scientific pursuit. The three essays included touch on some of the largest questions known to man: Can science determine the existence of God? Is there one "scientific method" by which all the secrets of the universe can be discovered? In "An Essay on Scians" (an early spelling of "science"), Medawar examines the process of scientific inquiry.
https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Science-P-B-Medawar/dp/0060390360/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=Peter+Medawar&qid=1609414550&sr=8-7
1984
(Yet in this incisive and witty memoir, Medawar reveals th...)
Yet in this incisive and witty memoir, Medawar reveals the events of an exceptional life, depicting his early days in Rio de Janeiro, his education at Oxford in the 1930s, the rewards and frustrations of his medical career, his musical education, his illnesses and recovery, his travels, and much more. This highly personal account illuminates the life of one of the most engaging and impressive men of our time.
https://www.amazon.com/Memoir-Thinking-Radish-Autobiography-letters/dp/0192820834/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Peter+Medawar&qid=1609414550&sr=8-2
1986
(This entertaining selection presents the very best of Med...)
This entertaining selection presents the very best of Medawar's writing with a new Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould, one of his greatest admirers. The wide range of subjects includes Howard Florey and penicillin, J. B.S. Haldane, whom he describes as a "with-knobs-on variant of us all," and, in the title essay, scientific fraud involving laboratory mice.
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Case-Spotted-Mice-Classic/dp/019286193X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1609414550&sr=8-1
1996
biologist professor scientist Zoologist
Ethnicity:
Medawar's father was a Lebanese and his mater was a British.
Peter Brian Medawar was born on February 28, 1915, in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is the son of a businessman who is a naturalized British subject, born in Lebanon.
Medawar was educated at Marlborough College, England, where he went in 1928. Leaving this College in 1932, he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, to study zoology under Professor J. Z. Young. In 1941 he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
After taking his bachelor’s degree at Oxford, Medawar worked for a time at Sir Howard Florey‘s School of Pathology at Oxford and there became interested in research in fields of biology that are related to medicine.
In 1935 he was appointed Christopher Welch Scholar and Senior Demonstrator at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1938 he became, by examination, a Fellow of Magdalen College. In 1942 he was Rolleston Prizeman and in 1944 he became Senior Research Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, and University Demonstrator in zoology and comparative anatomy.
During World War II Medawar investigated the repair of peripheral nerve injuries. In one of these investigations, he devised the first biological "glue," which he used to reunite severed nerves and to fix grafts. This work stimulated his interest in the techniques for transplantation.
In 1946 he was elected a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1947, when only 32, Medawar was appointed Mason professor of zoology at Birmingham University. He was greatly influenced in this work by Darcy Thompson, author of Growth and Form. At Birmingham, he became interested in problems of cellular heredity and transformation and renewed his attack on the homograft problem.
While attempting to devise a method to distinguish between identical and fraternal cattle twins by exchanging skin grafts between twin pairs, he discovered that even fraternal twins of unlike sex would accept each other's grafts. From this, he hypothesized that an exchange of cells between the cattle before birth brought about graft tolerance after birth.
In 1949, Burnet stated that the body's capacity to recognize foreign tissue was not inherited and that if a foreign tissue were introduced into an embryo, the body in later life would not reject a graft of tissue from the same animal. Medawar inoculated embryo mice with tissue from donor mice. Later he grafted tissues from the same donors on the inoculated mice, and the grafts were accepted. He then tried grafts from other donor mice, and these were rejected.
In 1951, when Medawar moved to the Jodrell chair of zoology at University College, London, he followed the lead afforded by the cattle work and demonstrated that inoculation of very young mice with cells from unrelated donors created a tolerance to homografts from their donors later in life. He also demonstrated that homograft reactivity is a form of delayed allergy.
His many recognitions and awards included a knighthood and numerous honorary degrees. He shared the 1960 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Sir Macfarlane Burnet for their discovery of acquired immunological tolerance, the body's ability to acquire tolerance to foreign tissue. This led him to investigate the rejection of grafts from donors.
He remained at University College, London, until 1962, when he was appointed Director of the National Institute for Medical Research, London.
His autobiography, Memoir of a Thinking Radish, was published in 1986. Peter Medawar died on October 2, 1987.
Peter Medawar was a Nobel Prize-winning immunologist who is widely considered to be the "father of organ transplantation."
Sir Peter Medawar experimentally demonstrated immunological tolerance through his tissue transplantation experiment in the early and mid-1950s. He made a central contribution to modern biomedicine by showing that genetically distinct cells introduced into a body during its fetal phase could not only be permanently tolerated but also make the host accept any subsequent skin grafts from the original cell donors.
He was knighted in 1965 and appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1972, and Order of Merit in 1981.
(Yet in this incisive and witty memoir, Medawar reveals th...)
1986(To those interested in a life in science, Sir Peter Medaw...)
1981(This is a superb collection of essays by a Nobel Prize-wi...)
1984(This entertaining selection presents the very best of Med...)
1996(In this brief, brilliant book the Nobel laureate explores...)
1984Medawar was not a religious man. He was a rationalist, with a distaste for many aspects of religion.
He claimed: "I believe that a reasonable case can be made for saying, not that we believe in God because He exists but rather that He exists because we believe in Him... Considered as an element of the world, God has the same degree and kind of objective reality as do other products of mind... I regret my disbelief in God and religious answers generally, for I believe it would give satisfaction and comfort to many in need of it if it were possible to discover and propound good scientific and philosophic reasons to believe in God... To abdicate from the rule of reason and substitute for it an authentication of belief by the intentness and degree of conviction with which we hold it can be perilous and destructive... I am a rationalist - something of a period piece nowadays, I admit..."
Medawar’s earlier research, done at Oxford, was on tissue culture, the regeneration of peripheral nerves, and the mathematical analysis of the changes of shape of organisms that occur during this development. During the early stages of the Second World War, he was asked by the Medical Research Council to investigate why it is that skin taken from one human being will not form a permanent graft on the skin of another person, and this work enabled him to establish theorems of transplantation immunity which formed the basis of his further work on this subject.
When he moved to Birmingham in 1947 he continued to work on it, in collaboration with R. Billingham, and together they studied their problems of pigmentation and skin grafting in cattle, and the use of skin grafting to distinguish between monozygotic and dizygotic twins in cattle.
In this work, they took into consideration the work of R. D. Owen and concluded that the phenomenon that they called "actively acquired tolerance" of homografts could be artificially reproduced. For this earlier work on transplantation and growth, Medawar was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
When he moved to London in 1951, Medawar continued to work with R. Billingham and L. Brent, on this phenomenon of tolerance, and his detailed analysis of it occupied him for several years. He also carried out other researches into transplantation immunity.
Quotations:
"All experimentation is criticism. If an experiment does not hold out the possibility of causing one to revise one’s views, it is hard to see why it should be done at all."
"Any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling answers. It is not enough that a problem should be "interesting." … The problem must be such that it matters what the answer is - whether to science generally or to mankind."
"Ask a scientist what he conceives the scientific method to be, and he will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and shifty-eyed: solemn because he feels he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed because he is wondering how to conceal the fact that he has no opinion to declare. If taunted he would probably mumble something about "Induction" and "Establishing the Laws of Nature," but if anyone working in a laboratory professed to be trying to establish the Laws of Nature by induction, we should think he was overdue for leave."
"I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not. The importance of the strength of our conviction is only to provide a proportionally strong incentive to find out if the hypothesis will stand up to critical examination."
Peter Medawar was a fellow of numerous organizations, such as the American College of Physicians, Royal College of Surgeons, British Association for the Advancement of Science (president 1968-1969), New York Academy of Sciences, American Academy Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, National Academy of Sciences, Royal Canada College Physicians and Surgeons, Royal Society, British Academy (honorary).
American College of Physicians , United States
Royal College of Surgeons , United Kingdom
British Association for the Advancement of Science , United Kingdom
New York Academy of Sciences , United States
American Academy Arts and Sciences , United States
American Philosophical Society , United States
National Academy of Sciences , United States
Royal Canada College of Physicians and Surgeons , Canada
The Royal Society , United Kingdom
The British Academy , United Kingdom
Medawar's friends and family said, that he had a great sense of humor, was a very kind and generous man.
Wherever he worked Medawar attracted a dedicated group of students and research fellows. With characteristic generosity, he treated them as colleagues and collaborators, and from the beginning, he gave them unstinting help and encouragement.
Many former members of his "school" went on to occupy distinguished positions around the world.
Physical Characteristics: Peter Medawar suffered his first stroke in 1969 while delivering a speech which left him paralyzed. He had many more strokes after that.
Quotes from others about the person
"You couldn’t help but admire Peter’s achievements - he was a kind, funny, and truly magical man." - Andrew Sachs, actor, a close friend to Peter Medawar.
"We remember and admire Peter not only for his great distinction as a scientist but also as a most generous, brave and delightful man, with a marvelous and playful sense of humor too," - members of the family.
In 1937 Medawar married Jean Shinglewood Taylor, daughter of a Cambridge physician. They have two sons, Charles and Alexander, and two daughters, Caroline and Louise.
Jean Medawar worked passionately in the promotion of family planning, especially for young girls. She was a Chair of the Family Planning Association, which In the 1950s was quite revolutionary.
