Bone marrowtransplant pioneerwonnobel in ’ 90

E. Donnall Thomas, a physicianwho pioneered the use of bone marrow transplants in leukemia patients and laterwon the 1990 Nobel Prize in medicine, has died in Seattle at age 92.

The FredHutchinson Cancer Research Center announced his death Saturday. A spokesman said the causewas heart disease. Thomaswas a native ofMart in Central Texas and received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas.

Thomas’work is among the greatest success stories in the treatment of cancer. Bone marrow transplantation and its sister therapy, blood stem cell transplantation, have improved the survival rates for some blood cancers to upward of 90 percent from almost zero.

This year, about 60,000 transplants will be performedworldwide, according to theHutchinson Center.

“Imagine coming up with an idea, making it a reality and touching that many lives,” said Dr. Fred Appelbaum, Thomas’ friend and the director of the center’s Clinical Research Division.

Thomas took after his father and became a doctor after getting his medical degree fromHarvard. In 1956, he performed the first human bone marrow transplant.

Thomas, along with a small team of fellow researchers, including his wife Dottie, pursued transplantations throughout the 1960s and 1970s despite skepticism from the medical establishment.

They sought to cure blood cancers by destroying a patient’s diseased bone marrowwith nearlethal doses of radiation and chemotherapy and then rescuing the patient by transplanting healthy marrow. The aimwas to establish a functioning and cancer- free blood and immune system.