Alexis Carrel (June 28 1873 - November 5 1944) was a French surgeon and biologist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912. Born and educated in Lyon, France. He practiced in France and the United States (University of Chicago and the Rockefeller Institute). He developed new techniques in vascular sutures and was a pioneer in transplantology and thoracic surgery. He was a member of learned societies in the United States of America, Spain, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Vatican City, Germany, Italy and Greece as well as he was honoured by honorary doctorates of the Universities of Belfast, Princeton, California and New York, and Brown and Columbia Universities.
He co-authored a book with Charles Lindbergh,The Culture of Organs.
On January 17, 1912 he placed a part of chicken's embryo heart in fresh nutrient medium in a stoppered Pyrex flask of his design. Every forty-eight hours the tissue doubled in size and was transferred to a new flask. The tissue was still growing 20 years later, longer than life of the chicken itself.
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