On Aug. 12, 1960, visiting professor, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas performed a bone marrow transplant at University of Washington Hospital.

He moved to Seattle permanently in 1963, serving as the first head of the Division of Oncology at the University of Washington (UW) and later establishing the clinical transplantation program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.

Thomas joined the faculty of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in 1974 as its first director of medical oncology.

In 1990, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Joseph E. Murray and E. Donnall Thomas “for their discoveries concerning organ and cell transplantation in the treatment of human disease.”

His groundbreaking work is among the greatest success stories in cancer treatment. Bone marrow transplantation and its sister therapy, blood stem cell transplantation, have had worldwide impact, boosting survival rates from nearly zero to up to 90 percent for some blood cancers. This year, approximately 60,000 transplants will be performed worldwide.