Alexis Carrel: Innovator Extraordinaire

Abstract

Alexis Carrel was awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for pioneering surgical techniques in vascular surgery. His triangulation technique enabled successful anastomosis of blood vessels and subsequently led to advances in blood vessel and organ transplantation. However, Alexis Carrel did not limit his research to the vascular speciality. During the First World War he developed the Carrel-Dakin method of wound irrigation and later his interests lay in aging cells.