Dr Joseph E. Murray (1919-2012), was the pioneer in transplant medicine as he performed the first organ transplantation in 1954. His epoch-making surgical feat occurred in 1956 as he and his team successfully transplanted kidney from a healthy 23 year old to his identical twin. With this began the age of transplant medicine. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology for this accomplishment in 1990.Though he was initially criticized as ‘playing God,’ he went ahead with the transplantation project after due ethical deliberations with the clergy members from a number of denominations. Murray was born in 1919 in Massachusetts in the US. He married Ms Bobby and they had three sons and three daughters.

He was a Catholic and was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science. To the National Catholic Register he said that there is no conflict between science and religion. “Is the Church inimical to science? Growing up as a Catholic and a scientist – I don’t see it. One truth is revealed truth, the other is scientific truth. If you really believe that creation is good, there can be no harm in studying science. The more we learn about creation – the way it emerged – it just adds to the glory of God. Personally, I’ve never seen a conflict.” He continued, “We’re just working with the tools God gave us. There’s no reason that science and religion have to operate in an adversarial relationship. Both come from the same source, the only source of truth – the Creator.”

His famous autobiography, published in 2001, is titled, Surgery of the Soul. John Langer described him as a Surgeon with Soul: “To Murray, a doctor’s responsibility is to treat each patient as not just a set of symptoms, but as someone with a spirit that can be helped through medical procedures. The title of his autobiography, Surgery of the Soulstems from Murray’s spiritually based approach to medicine. Though he has in the past hesitated to talk publicly about his faith, for fear of being lumped in with the televangelist crowd, Murray is deeply religious. ‘Work is a prayer,’ he said, ‘and I start off every morning dedicating it to our Creator. Every day is a prayer – I feel that, and I feel that very strongly.’”
His biographer, Meyer, cites him, “I think the important thing to realize is how little we know about anything – how flowers unfold, how butterflies migrate. We have to avoid the arrogance of persons on either side of the science-religion divide who feel that they have all the answers. We have to try to use our intellect with humility.”