Charles Bernard Carpenter, MD, Transplant Pioneer, 2011

Dr. Joseph Bonventre, Director, Renal Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and President of the American Society of Nephrology, writes:

“Dr. Carpenter was a 1958 graduate of Harvard Medical School. Following his internship and residency in New York and a brief stint in the U.S. Navy, Dr. Carpenter returned to Boston in 1962 to be trained in nephrology by Dr. John P. Merrill at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.

Dr. Carpenter’s research was focused on studying the molecular targets for the immune response to transplanted tissues. Dr. Carpenter trained 60 postdoctoral fellows in his lab, many of whom are now leaders in academic nephrology.
During the course of his career at the Brigham he served at various times as the Director of the Tissue Typing Laboratory, the Interhospital Organ Bank, the Immunogenetics Laboratory, and as the Acting Director of the Renal Division (2001-2003). Dr. Carpenter was a founding member of the Transplantation Society, the American Society of Nephrology, the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, and the American Society of Transplantation. Dr. Carpenter served as President of the latter two organizations. He was the 2004 recipient of the John P. Peters Award of the American Society of Nephrology and the 2005 recipient of the David Hume Award of the National Kidney Foundation.

We will all miss this giant of a man who was an extraordinary mentor and a pioneer and leader of Transplantation Nephrology for so many years”.