Thomas, E Donnall (1920– )

US scientist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1990 with Joseph E Murray for their pioneering work in organ and cell transplants.

Bone-marrow transplantation Thomas developed the transplantation of bone marrow to cure leukaemia (cancer of the white blood cells and bone marrow), certain inherited cancers of the bone marrow, and some severe blood disorders. The patient is treated with radiation to kill the cancer and then healthy bone marrow cells are given to the patient by infusing it into a blood vessel. Thomas found it was possible to extract about 1 l/1.75 pt of bone marrow from the bones of a healthy donor. In the patient's body, the transplanted bone marrow cells produce new, normal and functioning blood cells. Thomas showed that rejection of the transplanted cells could be avoided by using drugs and a carefully selected donor, usually a sibling.

Career Thomas was born in Texas and educated at the University of Texas, Austin, the Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1955 he went to the Mary Imogene Basset Hospital in Cooperstown, New York, and began work on marrow transplantation. In 1963 he moved to the department of medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington State, working in the Seattle Public Health Hospital. In 1975 his team moved to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle.