The first limb transplants with cyclosporine

Cyclosporine was first described in 1976 as a fungal metabolite and found to have remarkable immunosuppressive properties both experimentally and clinically. It was several years later that at the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine, Drs. Kirby Black (Research Director for the Plastic Surgery Division within the Department of Surgery) and Charles W. Hewitt (Director of Research for the Division of Urology within the Department of Surgery) found themselves next door to one another, each directing the research efforts of their respective divisions. Dr. Black's interests at the time were in developing models of ischemia reperfusion injury and flap studies in the field of Plastic Surgery and Dr. Hewitt's primary interests were in studying transplant rejection and mechanisms of tolerance induction, as the Division of Urology was the division that was primarily responsible for kidney transplantation at the University of California, Irvine.