Nobel winner, transplant pioneer Joseph Murray dies at 93

Nobel Prize-winning surgeon Dr. Joseph Murray, who completed the world's first successful kidney transplant, died Monday at age 93.

Murray was pronounced dead at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he performed his groundbreaking surgery, after suffering complications from a stroke, spokesman Tom Langford told Reuters.

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He and his team completed the first successful kidney transplant in 1954 on a set of identical twins, taking a kidney from one and giving it to his brother, according to The Associated Press.

Murray shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990 with bone marrow transplant pioneer Dr. E. Donnall Thomas.

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Murray began his career after graduating from Harvard Medical School in the 1940s, and developed an interest in transplanting tissue while working with injured soldiers in World War II, according to Reuters.

He and his colleagues began testing transplant techniques on dogs, removing and reimplanting kidneys, The New York Times reported.

According to the Boston Herald, Murray is survived by his wife, three sons, three daughters and 18 grandchildren.