It was 3:40 a.m., a Monday morning in the fall of 1990, when an East Coast reporter called Dr. E. Donnall Thomas with the news. He and Dr. Joseph Murray, a longtime friend and pioneer in kidney transplantation, would share one of the world’s most prestigious honors.

“At first I thought there was something wrong at the hospital, but then he was saying something about it just being announced – I had won the Nobel Prize,” says Thomas, whose forty years of bone marrow transplantation research was recognized by the award. “I thought someone might be playing a trick, but when he told me the co-winner was Joe Murray it started to make sense. So I sat there for about five minutes explaining marrow transplants to the reporter.”

Don’s wife Dottie was perplexed as to why he was giving an interview at four in the morning, he recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, it looks like we won the Nobel Prize.”

We. His use of the word was deliberate. Although Dottie’s name did not appear on the 1990 Nobel Prize awarded to her husband and Murray in Stockholm, she and his many colleagues and patients in research “made this happen,” he says. “Many people did this. It was not a single effort.”

The Thomas’s partnership began in 1939 when Don Thomas and the former Dottie Martin met at the University of Texas at Austin. He studied science and she journalism and biology. After their marriage, Don went to medical school at Harvard University. It was during this period that the pair became interested in bone marrow and leukemia. “We realized early on that if we were ever going to see each other she needed to get into medicine or some field of science,” Don says. Dottie entered medical technology training through the New England Deaconess Hospital.

The Thomases have worked side-by-side in the lab and the office ever since. Their earliest work involved basic studies of marrow function at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then early marrow transplantation studies at Mary Imogene Basset Hospital in New York. In 1963 the Thomases moved to Seattle and took up residency at the Seattle Public Health Service Hospital. When it appeared that the hospital would be closed by federal cutbacks in 1972, Don secured a $250,000 grant to move his marrow transplant research program to Providence Hospital. Finally, in 1975, the research team transferred to the new Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, making bone marrow transplantation the central focus of the Center’s clinical research division.

Both Don and Dottie cringe at the idea of “the big breakthrough” in research. Each success in the lab or clinic has been built upon something that was learned by someone before. The Thomases point to several markers on the road to understanding and improving bone marrow transplantation as a means of cancer treatment.

• In the 1960’s, focus was on immunology and irradiation biology. Tissue typing for compatible bone marrow transplants was studied, and transplants with identical twins revealed that post-transplant complications will arise even though blood and tissue types are a perfect match.



• Through the 60’s and into the 70’s improved techniques to type tissue were developed. Newer antibiotics helped to control bacterial infections in patients.



• Improvements with transplantation itself began with the first successful non-twin sibling transplants in 1968 and 1969. Autologous (self-donor) transplants were done as early as the 1970’s, although many problems remained to be worked out. The first transplant from an unrelated donor occurred in 1977.



• In the 1980’s and 90’s, technological advances have dramatically changed lab work. Research that took the entire decade of the 1960’s, “could probably be accomplished in six months with today’s technology,” Don says.

In 1987 the Seattle team performed José Carreras’ marrow transplant at the Hutchinson Center. Like other patients, the tenor developed a strong bond with those who cared for him during his treatment for leukemia. After José returned to his home in Barcelona, he sought the assistance of Don and other medical experts to establish the José Carreras International Leukemia Foundation. From the beginning, Don has served as chairperson of the foundation’s scientific advisory board, which selects international fellowship recipients each year. He also serves as board vice president of the Friends. Dottie is board treasurer, and serves unofficially as administrative director.

The Thomases have three children, all of whom were practically raised at the Hutchinson Center. While both Don and Dottie are technically retired from the Hutch, they are still in the office every day, unless they are travelling for frequent speaking engagements, board meetings, medical meetings or hunting and fishing excursions.