In 1975, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas, a pioneer in bone marrow transplantation, secured a permanent treatment home at the Hutchinson Center. In 1973, Thomas moved his family to Seattle, where he joined the new University of Washington Medical School’s oncology division, where he assembled a brilliant research team.

In 1979, Thomas and his research team completed the first successful transplant to treat a patient with leukemia using marrow from an unrelated donor -a milestone because only about one-fourth to one-third of patients who need a transplant have a sibling whose tissue matches closely enough.