Thomas Earl Starzl was a pioneering transplant surgeon. Known as the *Father of transplantation* he carried out the first successful human liver transplant in 1967. Born on 11 March 1926 in LeMars, Iowa, he was the second son of Roman (Rome) Frederick Starzl and his wife Anna Laura née Fitzgerald. His father was the editor, publisher and owner of the local newspaper and as he grew up he turned his hand to helping him with varied tasks from delivery boy to reporting. After attending Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri to obtain a bachelor’s degree in biology and serving for a year and a half with the US Navy, at the age of 21 he decided to study medicine, influenced by his mother who was a nurse. At the Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago he received a master’s degree in anatomy in 1950 and a doctorate in neurophysiology in 1952. His interest then shifted away from neuroscience and he began developing his skills in vascular and thoracic surgery with residencies and a fellowship at Johns Hopkins (from 1952 to 1956), the University of Miami (from 1959 to 1961), and the Northwestern Universities (1959 to 1961). On the research front he explored heart block and epicardial pacemaking. He was given the Markle scholarship in medical science which was awarded annually to exceptional students and served on the faculty of Northwestern University from 1958 to 1961. At this time he worried that he would not find a specialty that engaged him and wrote that he was *a missile searching for a trajectory*. But gradually his interest in other subjects faded and he began to focus on the liver. He joined the Denver Veterans Administration Hospital in 1962 and then, at the University of Colorado, became associate professor of surgery in 1962, professor in 1964 and chairman of the department from 1972 to 1980. He resigned from this post and moved to University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as professor of surgery in 1981, stipulating that he would be free of administrative duties and able to concentrate on his transplantation programme. For ten years he was chief of transplantation services at the University of Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian Hospital, the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the Veterans Administration Hospital – in all the largest and busiest transplantation programme in the world. Finally he became director of the University of Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute which, in 1996, was renamed in his honour. Beginning in 1963 his first attempts at liver transplantation were a failure and a colleague noted that *nobody thought that you could get transplantation across immune barriers to work ......but Tom never gave up when others did*. He called a halt to proceedings while he investigated effective immunosuppressive drugs and the first successful human liver transplantation took place in 1967 in Colorado. From then on he led the research that led to huge advances in transplantation including investigating the possibility of xeno-transplantation – in 1992 and 1993 his team made medical history when surgeons performed two baboon-to-human liver transplants. Although he gave up clinical work in 1991 he never really retired and spent long days on campus until shortly before his death. He claimed that he did not miss surgery as he was not emotionally equipped to deal with the loss of a patient. Haunted by the tragic outcomes of his early transplant experiences, he formed lasting bonds with his surviving patients remaining in touch with then for the rest of their lives. Even after retirement he somehow never found much time to devote to his other interests – notably his dogs, who accompanied him everywhere, music and the cinema. The recipient of over 225 awards and honours, he was also a member of over 58 professional and scientific organisations. President of the International Transplantation Society, he was also founding president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and founding president of the Transplant Recipients International Organisation. On the editorial boards of 22 professional publications he wrote or co-authored more than 2250 scientific articles, four books and over 300 chapters in books. During his most productive period it was said that he published a paper every 7.3 days thus making him one of the most prolific scientists in the world. In 1954 he married Barbara June née Brothers, and they had three children: Timothy Wakefield (born 1955), Rebecca (born 1956) and Thomas Fitzgerald (born 1958). The marriage ended in divorce in 1976 and he married Joy Denise née Congar in 1981. She was an African-American research technician who later developed a career as a social worker. When he died on 4 March 2017 aged 90 years, he was survived by Joy to whom he had been married for 36 years, his son, Timothy and grandson Ravi. His daughter Rebecca predeceased him in 2008 and his son Thomas died in 2016.