Montrose Thomas Burrows

Montrose Thomas Burrows (1884 – 1947) was a US surgeon and pathologist specializing in cancer research and surgery. He was born into a Scots-Irish Presbyterian family in Halstead, Kansas. (includes photo).

Along with Dr. Alexis Carrel, a surgeon at Rockefeller Institute (1906 – 1927), Dr. Burrows is credited with coining the phrase "tissue culture", and is among the first to adapt such methods to the study of tissues from warm-blooded animals. Throughout his career, he specialized in the etiology and pathophysiology of cancer treatment.

After graduation from the University of Kansas with a BA in 1905, Burrows earned his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1909 when it was considered to be America’s premier medical school.

After Johns Hopkins, Burrows began fellowship training in 1909 under Alexis Carrel at The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (Rockefeller University) just as it was about to launch clinical training along with its program of basic research in New York City.

In 1910 during a visit to the laboratory of Ross Granville Harrison at Yale, Burrows studied tissue culture. At Yale, Burrows also successfully established tissue cultures of embryonic chick cells.

Upon returning to Carrel’s laboratory Burrows initiated Harrison’s methods and went on to make significant improvements to Harrison’s original techniques.

These improvements include the substitution of blood plasma for lymph and the addition of embryo extract in the tissue culture medium that improved the growth of tissue cultures.

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