Christiaan Barnard nació el 8 de noviembre de 1922 en Sudáfrica. Estuvo casado con Karin Setzkorn, Barbara Maria Zoellner y Aletta Gertruida Louw. Murió el 2 de septiembre de 2001 en Coral Bay, Cyprus.
A South African heart surgeon who performed the world's first heart transplant. In 1967 Barnard headed a 30-person surgical team that transplanted the heart of a young girl who had died in an auto accident into a diabetic 55-year-old man whose heart was failing and who was near death. The patient lived just 18 days after the operation, but his next heart transplant resulted in the patient living for another 1-1/2 years. Over the years he performed more than 75 transplant operations altogether.
[just before his death] At almost 79, people ask me, "Where do you go from here?" I say to them, "I'm on the waiting list. I don't know exactly where I am on that list or where I'm going, but I'm on it."
