Cardiac surgeon Gerald Lemole, MD, donated $5 million to Philadelphia-based Temple University to help the university establish a lymphatics research center, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports.
Temple named the center the Lemole Center for Integrated Lymphatics Research in honor of the donation.
Dr. Lemole graduated from Temple's Lewis Katz School of Medicine in 1962. He notably was part of a team of surgeons that performed the first heart transplant in the U.S. in 1968.
The next year, Dr. Lemole returned to Philadelphia to become an instructor at Temple. That year he also performed the first coronary bypass in Philadelphia's tri-state area. At age 32, he was named chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Temple.