Peter Brian Medawar was a renowned biologist who made major contributions to the study of immunology . Working extensively with skin grafts, he and his collaborators proved that one's immune system "learns" to distinguish between "self" and "non-self"--that is, such distinctions are not inherent. During his career, Medawar also became a prolific author, penning books such as The Uniqueness of the Individual and Advice to a Young Scientist. Winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1960, he was also knighted in 1965.

Medawar was born on February 28, 1915, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to businessperson Nicholas Medawar and the former Edith Muriel Dowling. When he was a young boy, his family moved to England, which he thereafter called home. Medawar attended secondary school at Marlborough College, where he first became interested in biology. He once described his biology master at Marlborough as a rough individual whose selection for...