Andrew Gunn

Andrew Gunn was born in Edinburgh on 6 March 1936, a son to Andrew and Molly, brother to Rosemary, Eileen, and Brian. Academically gifted, good at art and sport, he was educated at the city’s Holy Cross Academy and, at the age of 17, won a place to read medicine at Edinburgh University. He graduated in 1959, pursued a career in surgery and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh at the age of 26. He loved his professional life as a surgeon and scientist and considered it a privilege to have worked with and learned from a number of distinguished colleagues.

While undertaking his surgical training in Edinburgh, he worked with Sir Michael Woodruff, the first British surgeon to perform a live donor kidney transplant in the UK; he then moved to Aberdeen, where he developed his skills in endocrine surgery, under the guidance of Bill Michie and his research skills, with Sir Alastair Currie in cancer research. Subsequently he moved to Dundee where he was influenced and inspired by the then professor of surgery, Sir Donald Douglas. From there, he was particularly proud to win a Medical Research Council clinical research fellowship at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London, where he worked with Sir Peter Medawar, Nobel laureate, widely considered the father of transplant immunology.

Although subsequently offered surgical appointments in London, Andrew loved Angus and accepted an appointment back at the University of Dundee and later Ninewells Hospital, where he became …