René Küss (3 May 1913 – 2006) was a French urologist and transplant surgeon who made pioneering contributions in renal tract surgery and kidney transplantation with the establishment of transplant programs. At a time of unavoidable transplant rejection, he was involved in two particularly historic transplant operations. The first was a human-to-human extraperitoneal kidney transplant procedure in 1951 and later a pig-to-human kidney transplant in 1966, both of which ended in abrupt rejection. He later introduced kidney transplantation schedules involving at first irradiation, later immunosuppressants, living-related and unrelated donors and later organs from deceased donors. Küss established several urology departments at the Paris hospitals, became General Secretary and between 1952 and 1985 took up presidency for the Société Internationale d'Urologie. In 1971, he founded the first scientific society devoted to transplantation medicine in Europe, La Société Francaise de Transplantation. Although they worked separately, the simultaneous efforts of Küss and nephrologist Jean Hamburger are felt by transplant peers including Nobel prize winner Joseph Murray, to have "largely been forgotten", and that they have not been given "full credit for their work internationally".
Early life and education René Küss was born on 3 May 1913 into a Protestant family from Alsace. He grew up with firm morals and responsibilities, being the son of a distinguished and wealthy surgeon who was at one time president of the French Academy of Surgery. Küss's grandfather's brother was Émile Küss, a physician at the University of Strasbourg and the last mayor of Strasbourg prior to its annexation by Germany. His father headed the general surgical department at Paris's Hôpital de la Charité, later known as the Hopital Broussais. Küss recalled first attending an operating theatre with his father at the age of seven. He had two brothers and two sisters and his family spent time travelling between their homes by the seaside, on the mountains and in Paris, in pursuit of sports and arts. He was educated at the University of Paris School of Medicine and held an appointment as a surgical resident at the Hôpital Broca, Paris, under the chief of service, Robert Proust, the brother of the author Marcel Proust.
Second World War Küss left his early medical training at the age of 26 to enlist in the French army during the Second World War, and subsequently became physician to the French navy. He survived the attack on Mers-el-Kébir as physician-in-chief on the destroyer Mogador, which was bombed and eventually sunk off the coast of North Africa in the Scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon. On one occasion, he jumped overboard into the "oil-slick-covered sea to rescue crewmen". He received the War Cross with Palm for his war efforts. He headed General George Patton's 3rd American army's surgical team across France and into Germany and by "alternately manipulating scalpels and grenades", contributed to the efforts of the French resistance to liberate Paris. The whole time, he operated on both American and German injured soldiers.
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