27 Facts About Alexis Carrel

Alexis Carrel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques.

Alexis Carrel invented the first perfusion pump with Charles Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation.

Alexis Carrel is known for his leading role in implementing eugenic policies in Vichy France.

Alexis Carrel published his first scientific article about this method in 1902.

In 1902, Alexis Carrel underwent a transformative experience that led him from being a skeptic of the reported visions and miracles at Lourdes to a believer in spiritual cures.

Alexis Carrel's beliefs proved to be a hindrance to his career and reputation in academic medicine in France, and as a result he left France for Canada.

Alexis Carrel would write a book about the case The Voyage to Lourdes, which was released four years after his death.

Alexis Carrel would be awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for these efforts.

In World War I, Alexis Carrel served as a major in the French Army medical Corps.

In 1939, Alexis Carrel returned to France and took a position with the French Ministry of Health.

Alexis Carrel was a young surgeon who was deeply affected by the 1894 assassination of the French president, Sadi Carnot, who died from a severed portal vein that surgeons believed was irreparable.

Alexis Carrel learned this technique from an embroideress, and later incorporated it into his work.

The mechanical irrigation technique developed by Alexis Carrel is still used today.

Alexis Carrel co-authored a book with pilot Charles Lindbergh, The Culture of Organs.

Alexis Carrel developed methods to keep animal tissues alive in culture.

Alexis Carrel was interested in the phenomenon of senescence or aging.

Alexis Carrel believed that all cells continued to grow indefinitely, which became a widely accepted view in the early 20th century.

In 1912, Alexis Carrel began an experiment at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, where he cultured tissue from an embryonic chicken heart in a stoppered Pyrex flask of his own design.

Alexis Carrel supplied the culture with nutrients regularly and maintained it for over 20 years, longer than a chicken's normal lifespan.

Hayflick suggested that Alexis Carrel's daily feeding of nutrients continually introduced new living cells to the culture, resulting in anomalous results.

Alexis Carrel was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1909 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1914.

Alexis Carrel was a member of learned societies in the US, Spain, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Vatican City, Germany, Italy, and Greece, and was elected twice, in 1924 and 1927, as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Alexis Carrel received honorary doctorates from Queen's University of Belfast, Princeton University, Brown University, and Columbia University.

Seven years later, in 1979, the lunar crater Alexis Carrel was named after him as a tribute to his breakthroughs.

In February 2002, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's birth, the Lindbergh-Alexis Carrel Prize was established by the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston.

Alexis Carrel argued for an aristocracy that would come from individuals of potential and advocated for euthanasia for criminals and the criminally insane.

In 1937, Alexis Carrel joined the Centre d'Etudes des Problemes Humains, which was led by Jean Coutrot.