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There are very few scientific papers that continue to have an impact on research more than 50 years after their initial publication. A paper published in J. Exp. Biol. in 1951 by Rupert Billingham and Peter Medawar is one such paper. Both clinicians and scientists still turn to the paper to understand fundamental concepts in dermatology and as a primer to skin grafting in mammals. Dermatologists in training still read this classic paper,and the paper continues to be cited in contemporary scientific literature involving skin transplantation. Indeed, one still frequently encounters the phrase “skin grafts were performed following the method of Billingham and Medawar.” The impact of the paper is also greatly amplified in that the paper facilitated the later discovery of `actively acquired tolerance' and the definition of the principal laws of transplantation tolerance. Fittingly, this line of experimentation led to the awarding of the 1960 Nobel Prize...
