Peter Medawar

Peter Medawar (1915-1987), British biologist and Nobel laureate, noted for his discovery of acquired immunity and for his writings on the practice of science. Medawar was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of British parents, and educated at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. From 1938 to 1962 Medawar taught successively at Oxford, at Birmingham University, and at University College of the University of London. In 1962 he was named director of the National Institute for Medical Research, London. Medawar shared the 1960 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with the Australian biologist Sir (Frank) Macfarlane Burnet, whose predictions concerning the ability of the body to accept transplanted tissue were confirmed in graftings conducted by Medawar on embryo rats inoculated with foreign tissue. Among his books are Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought (1969), Advice to a Young Scientist (1979), and Memoir of a Thinking Radish (1986). Medawar was knighted in 1965.