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Azathioprine

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Drug Discovery

Abstract

The replacement of diseased human organs with healthy ones from donors, cadavers, or animals has been a challenge, and an enigma, to surgeons throughout much of the history of medicine. Even in relatively recent times, experiments with homografts* of skin and other organs, such as kidney, indicated that there was virtually no chance for success: the host’s immune system rejected and destroyed the donated organ (Medawar, 1944,1945; Dempster, 1953; Hume et al., 1955). Hume et al. (1955) concluded, “Renal homo- transplantation has no place in the therapy of human patients at this time.”

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Maxwell, R.A., Eckhardt, S.B. (1990). Azathioprine. In: Drug Discovery. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0469-5_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0469-5_6

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