Sir Peter Brian Medawar (February 28, 1915 - October 2, 1987) was a British medical scientist who won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Medicine jointly with Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, for research into the nature of the immunological meaning of 'self' as evidenced in skin graft acceptance and rejection in both animals and humans. These discoveries were an important part of the background which led to clinical organ transplantation in medicine.

He was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a Lebanese father and an English mother. He was educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, and at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was Mason Professor of Zoology at the University of Birmingham, later (at University College, London) the Jodrell Professor of Zoology, and then Director of the UK National Institute for Medical Research. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 34, and was elected to the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosopical Society.

Peter Medawar was also an author of grace, clarity, and wit on scientific, philosophic, educational, and other subjects. His books include Pluto's Republic, a book of essays, including several on the philosophy of science and scientific method, Advice to a Young Scientist, Aristotle to Zoos (with his wife Jean Shinglewood Taylor), and Memoirs of a Thinking Radish, a brief autobiography.

External link

• Biography of Sir Peter Medawar on Magdalen College website (http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/history/nobel_medawar.shtml)