SIR ROY YORKE CALNE, M.B., B.S., M.A., M.S.
1930-2024
Roy Yorke Calne was an English transplant surgeon of international fame and reputation. He trained at Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London. His interest in transplantation was kindled by meeting a young man dying of renal failure for which there was no treatment at that time. He asked about transplantation but was told it was impossible. He attended a lecture on the immunology of ‘self and nonself’ by Sir Peter Medawar in Oxford and could clearly see the potential of this work to human transplantation although most people at the time could not.
He decided to pursue the idea of kidney transplantation and won the Harkness Fellowship at Harvard where he studied the rejection of donated organs. He was appointed as Chair and Professor of Surgery at the University of Cambridge at the astonishingly young age of 35 years. He set up a kidney transplant programme and very shortly after undertook the first successful liver transplant in Europe in 1968. He worked closely with Roger Williams of King’s College London who had established a medical liver unit. Patients in advanced stages of liver failure would be driven across London at high speed to Addenbroke’s Hospital in Cambridge where Sir Roy and his team would undertake the transplant and early post operative care, with patients being transferred back to London after. This rather complicated process exploited both centres’ expertise and delivered a highly effective transplantation programme. Later as transplant hepatology became more established, Cambridge and King’s set up their own comprehensive transplant programmes.
Sir Roy had a major impact on the outcomes of solid organ transplantation through his interest and research on immunosuppressive drugs. Once the surgical techniques of organ transplantation had been mastered, the greatest impediment to organ survival was rejection. Sir Roy pioneered the use of Cyclosporin A in organ transplantation and later the use of Alemtuzumab also known as Campath. These drugs were to completely transform the outlook of patients receiving organ transplants. He is credited with several firsts including combined thoracoabdominal organ transplantation (heart, lung, liver), intestinal transplantation and abdominal cluster transplants.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, awarded the Lister Medal in 1984 and was knighted in 1986. He worked closely with Tom Starzl on many aspects of liver transplantation and immunosuppression and Calne and Starzl were jointly awarded the Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 2012 for the development of liver transplantation. He was awarded many honours in his lifetime and continued working at Cambridge University as an Emeritus Professor up until 1998.
His legacy is a generation of modern surgeons and scientists inspired by his work. He is best known for his enthusiasm and optimism often in the face of negatively charged opposing views. He was a calm man who never lost his temper in or outside of the operating room. He was a talented painter and sculptor. He died at the age of 93 survived by his wife, six children and many grandchildren.
STEPHEN J. WIGMORE, B.Sc., M.B.B.S., M.D.