JASN2011111048 1..2


OBITUARY www.jasn.org

In Memoriam: Charles Bernard
Carpenter

Richard J. Glassock,* Edgar Milford,†

Mohamed H. Sayegh,ठTerry Strom,| and
Nicholas Tilney¶

*Department of Medicine, Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los
Angeles, California; Departments of †Medicine and ¶Surgery,
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston,
Massachusetts; ‡Department of Medicine, American University of
Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon; §Harvard Medical School, Boston,
Massachusetts; and |Department of Medicine, Beth Israel-Deaconess
Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

J Am Soc Nephrol 23: 1–2, 2012.
doi: 10.1681/ASN.2011111048

Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path

and leave a trail.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An authentic pioneer must be visionary, courageous, resilient,
patient, and persistent. All of these noble qualities were
embodied in the persona of Charles Bernard (“Bernie”)
Carpenter, a true pathfinder in the field of transplantation
and nephrology, who passed into the pages of history at age
78 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. Only a very
few individuals have been dually responsible for the founding
of a medical discipline and for contributing so munificently to
its growth and maturation.

Bernie was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, in 1933, and
remained a New Englander by nature and temperament. He
possessed an inexhaustible curiosity, a calm and caring
demeanor, and a dedication to the high ideals of scholarship,
family, and friendship. After graduating from Dartmouth
College (summa cum laude) and Dartmouth Medical School,
he received his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1958.
After a short sojourn at Cornell University Medical College
and the Bellevue Hospital in New York for training in internal
medicine, he served 2 years in the US Naval Medical Corps in
Japan and then returned to Boston and the Peter Bent Brig-
ham Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 1962, where he
remained almost a half-century for his illustrious and highly
productive career. At Harvard, he rose to full professor after
18 years, serving along the way as an investigator of the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1973 to 1980. Al-
though he was director of the Tissue Typing and Immunogenet-
ics Laboratories ofthe Brigham andWomen’s Hospital for nearly
3 decades, these titles and accomplishments are pale reflections
of his iconic status in our field.

Bernie, almost single-handedly, created the discipline of
transplant medicine. In the heady, early days of organ trans-
plantationusingazathioprineandglucocorticoids,andunderthe
guidanceofJohnMerrillandJosephMurray,bothseminalfigures
inthefieldofhumanorgantransplantation,hebecamethe main
physician providing ongoing care for the first successful
kidney transplants performed with immunosuppression in the
dramatic period of 1962 to 1963—rightly called the dawn of
organ allo-transplantation modified by drugs. Bernie excelled
in the provision of compassionate care at a time when the out-
come ofthekidney transplantationwas not as wellunderstood as
it is now. The small initial brotherhood of patients with success-
ful kidney grafts idolized him for his cool confidence radiating a
much appreciated reassurance for their uncertain lives. He
quickly expanded his horizons beyond the limits of the bedside
tothelaboratory,where healsobegina life-long questto uncover

Charles Bernard Carpenter

Published online ahead of print. Publication date available at www.jasn.org.

Correspondence: Dr. Richard J. Glassock, 8 Bethany, Laguna Niguel, CA
92677. Email: Glassock@cox.net

Copyright © 2012 by the American Society of Nephrology

J Am Soc Nephrol 23: 1–2, 2012 ISSN : 1046-6673/2301-1 1

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the secrets of allograft acceptance. It was this conjunction of
clinical and laboratory science that brought Bernie to posterity’s
pinnacle.

He also became the mentor for a phenomenal succession of
supremely talented and gifted individuals, whose own con-
tributions firmly advanced the discipline of transplant med-
icine. His disciples recall the easy spirit of cooperation and
openness, the quiet acceptance of young investigators strug-
gling with unfamiliar technology and the growing intricacies
of transplantation immunology, and most of all, the overriding
sense of integrity, honesty, openness, and critical exposition
that he brought to all endeavors.

Bernie became known as the “big man who made all feel
bigger” when they were under his spell. Trainees and young
faculty flocked to Bernie and the laboratories of the Brigham
and Women’s Hospital in large numbers (over 60) knowing
that their careers as clinicians and scientists in the newly min-
ted field of transplantation immunology, immunogenetics,
and clinical transplantation would be would be nurtured by
an inspirational mentor of unmatched intellect, balanced by
wit and wisdom and a willingness to listen. Their decisions to
come under this guidance were rewarded by success and rec-
ognition in their own right. Bernie’s light burnt even more
brightly on account of his unqualified dedication to his intel-
lectual offspring. By the end of his active career, Bernie had
trained a great majority of the new leaders of transplantation
medicine in the United States and in many foreign countries.

Together with his colleagues and trainees, he published over
380 scientific papers or about one per month over a span of
40 years. It is difficult to select key contributions from such a
diverse and prodigious record of clinical and basic investiga-
tion; he made major contributions to the immunogenetics
of transplantation and tissue typing, indirect allo-recognition,
oral tolerance, mechanisms of allograft rejection, immuno-
suppression (chemical and biologic), complement metabolism
in disease, and many others. Bernie and the talented group of
co-investigators that surrounded him touched virtually every
critical issueinhuman and experimentaltissue transplantation.

Naturally, such an exceptional career would bring many
accolades and awards. He was elected to the American Society
for Clinical Investigation and to the Association of American
Physicians,andservedasthepresidentoftheAmericanSocietyof
Transplant Physicians (now the American Society of Trans-
plantation). Bernie, along with Ronald Guttmann, Lawrence
Hunsicker, and Terry Strom, helped found this major society
representing the nascent field of transplantation medicine.
He received the prestigious John P. Peters Award from the

American Society of Nephrology and the David Hume Award
fromtheNationalKidneyFoundation.Hiscolleaguesandfriends
throughout the world endowed a Carpenter Transplantation
Fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital on the
occasion of his retirement from active academic life.
He retired officially in 2005 but the ties to Boston were so
strong he did not move to his postacademic hamlet in New
Hampshire until 2007.

Despite all of these achievements, Bernie remained the
humble and generous humanist that endeared him to all that
were fortunate to know or work with him. He sought no
limelight and commanded no audience. He was content to
follow his instincts, to persist in his curiosity, and to guide
others through the tedium and disappointments that can crop
up in a research career. His ability to succeed in all of these tasks
can be attributed in large part his devotion to family and the
support he received from his loving wife, Sandra, and to the joy
they experienced in witnessing the growth and successes of
their sons, Brad and Scott, and their four grandchildren,
Michaela, Emma, Andres, and Annette. Add to this the
wonderful ambience of New England and the warmth of their
home in Weston, summers at a cottage on Angle Pond in New
Hampshire and later a new home at Bar Harbor in Maine, the
numerous informal gatherings with a large coterie of close
friends, and their travels to many countries as an ambassador
of transplantation science, and one can appreciate the richness
of Bernie’s and Sandra’s life together. His last years, like his
entire illustrious career, were devoted to the pursuit of new
knowledge, as he became a volunteer for a large clinical trial in
Alzheimer’s disease at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Bernie’s career over time is testimony to the truth of the
observations of Socrates and Emerson that the examined life is
the one worth living. Instinct, intuition, imagination, and re-
flection guided Bernie during his long and productive career, a
career epitomized by a passion to understand the unknown.
No biologic mystery intimidated his inquisitiveness. His
aequinimitas as a teacher brought out the best in his students.
His legacy survives in the knowledge he advanced and in the
accomplishments of his academic progeny. He will be sorely
missed but not forgotten.

All that is beautiful drifts away, like the waters.

William Butler Yeats

DISCLOSURES
None.

2 Journal of the American Society of Nephrology J Am Soc Nephrol 23: 1–2, 2012

OBITUARY www.jasn.org