In the early 1950s, a successful human organ transplant had never occurred. Murray and his associates developed new surgical techniques at Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, now Brigham and Women's Hospital, gaining knowledge by successfully transplanting the kidneys on dogs. They identified the right patients in December 1954, 23-year-old Richard Herrick, who had end-stage kidney disease, and Ronald Herrick, his identical twin.
Because of their identical genetic background, they did not face the biggest transplant-patient problem, the rejection of foreign tissue by the immune system.
Richard was having a functioning kidney transplanted from Ronald after the operation. Richard lived an additional eight years.
In the next few years, Murray carried out further transplants on identical twins and attempted kidney transplants on other relatives, including fraternal twins, discovering more about how to suppress the rejection of foreign tissue by the immune system.Murray and his team completed the first organ transplant from an unrelated donor in 1962 with success. Mel Doucette, the 23-year-old woman, was received a kidney from a man who had died.