Hearing of the success of Sir Roy Calne and the team in Boston, the first liver transplant was performed in 1963 by Dr. Tom Starzl. Liver transplantation is much more complicated and it was only successful with the ultimate introduction of two more drugs called Cyclosporine and FK506.
These immunosuppressive drugs work differently but do act to suppress the immune system and allow the organ to not be rejected by the recipient.