Transplantation tolerance – a historical introduction

Summary The concept of immunological tolerance – the state of specific unresponsiveness to allogeneic transplants and all manner of other antigens – began in 1945 with R.D. Owen's finding that cattle dizygotic twins are red blood cell chimeras. Peter Medawar's group in Birmingham likewise discovered, quite independently, that cattle dizygotic twins accept each others’ skin grafts. These findings, together with F.M. Burnet and F. Fenner's speculations in 1949, prompted Medawar, together with R.E. Billingham and L. Brent, now at University College London, to embark on an extensive series of experiments that established immunological tolerance as a fundamental phenomenon, forming a new branch of immunology.