Abstract
Michael Woodruff performed the first successful renal transplant in the UK and described the technique of joining the ureter of the transplant to the bladder. He contributed to all aspects of transplantation biology and was responsible for the design of the first purpose-built transplant unit in the world. As a Japanese prisoner of war at Changi in Singapore, Michael Woodruff studied the effects of malnutrition and devised a machine for extracting vitamins and trace elements from grass. After the war he demonstrated that the anterior chamber of the eye was an immunologically privileged site. He was the first person to describe ‘adaptation’. He showed that antilymphocytic serum was effective as an immunosuppressive agent for homografts.
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