Dr Walter G. Land is the former Head of the Division of Transplantation Surgery at the Klinikum Grosshadern, University of Munich. After graduating he worked at the Institute of Surgical Research, the University of Munich from 1967-1971. At that time, he produced a horse antilymphocyte serum, a powerful immunosuppressant, that he used to treat the first successful heart transplant patient, in cooperation with Chris Barnard, Cape Town, South Africa (in 1968). After specialized as a consultant in Surgery (1971-1975), he was the Head of the Munich Transplant Center from 1975-2004, where ~ 4000 kidney transplants and ~ 400 pancreas transplants were performed under his leadership. In 1979, he and his team performed the first pancreas transplantation in Germany; this was followed by the first unrelated kidney transplantation between a couple in Germany in 1994. Dr Land’s research work included the clinical development of all immunosuppressive drugs that are currently used in transplant patients and patients suffering from autoimmune diseases. His experience in this field is published in a monograph (“Immunsuppressive Therapie”).

His experience in this field is published in a monograph (“Immunsuppressive Therapie”). Based on observations from a clinical trial in kidney transplant patients (“the Munich SOD trial”) in 1994, he proposed the “danger/injury model” in immunology holding that it is the injury that induces immunity. In extension to this work, together with S.Y. Seong, he coined the term "DAMPs" in 2003/2004.