Thomas Starzl is a world-renowned transplant surgeon. He performed the first human liver transplant in 1963 and was a pioneer in kidney transplantation . He has continued his pioneering work by helping to develop better drugs to make human organ transplants safer and more successful. Starzl has also contributed to the fields of general and thoracic surgery and neurophysiology.

Thomas Earl Starzl was born on March 11, 1926, in Le Mars, Iowa, to Roman F. Starzl, the editor and publisher of the Globe Post, a local newspaper, and Anna Laura Fitzgerald Starzl. He was the second son and was followed by two younger sisters. He finished high school during World War II and enlisted in officers' training school at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in 1944. After his discharge from military service, he entered the premedical program at Westminster College, graduating in 1947. After graduation he immediately returned home to care for his mother...