In selecting for discussion the general theme of the donation and sharing of cells, tissues and organs (typically accomplished by transfusion and other forms of surgical transplantation) the program committee of the Second Congress of the Canadian Bioethics Society appears to have been astonishingly prescient in anticipating that two North American physicians —clinical researchers rather than “basic” scientists, by the way —would receive, as they did just over a month ago, Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine for their medical achievements.1 Dr. Joseph Murray was cited in part for successfully performing, in 1954, the first human kidney transplant (the recipient lived eight years), as well as for discovering how to minimize the body's rejection of this organ; Dr. Donnall Thomas was cited for work he accomplished in 1956 —the first bone-marrow cell transfusion to a 16-year-old patient (who is still alive) such that the human immune reaction of a graft to this recipient's body could be medically managed to avoid rejection of the transplanted material (Economist 1990). Having mentioned these awards, I should note that Dr. George Hitchings had already received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1988, being credited with the discovery of a powerful immunosuppressant, azathioprine, which greatly improved the survival of the recipients of unmatched graft transplants.