Clyde F. Barker, MD, is a native of Salt Lake City, a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Cornell University and Cornell University Medical College. His entire subsequent career has been at the University of Pennsylvania. After internship, residency in surgery and fellowship in vascular surgery, he studied transplantation biology under Rupert Billingham as a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Medical Genetics. In 1966, his first year on the faculty, he initiated the University's transplant program by performing a kidney transplant, now one of only a small number in the world that still functions 46 years later. From 1966-2001 he was Chief of Transplantation Surgery, from 1982-2001, Chief of Vascular Surgery and from 1983-2001 John Rhea Barton Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery.

Dr. Barker's research interests have been primarily in transplantation, especially transplantation of the kidney, pancreas and isolated pancreatic islets. His research was continuously funded for over twenty-five years by grants from the National Institutes of Health, including an NIH Merit Award from 1987 to 1995. Dr. Barker has published more than 430 scientific papers and served on 12 editorial boards.

Dr. Barker's scientific memberships include the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the American College of Surgeons, The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the Association of American Physicians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society of which he is now President. He has been President of the American Society of Transplantation Surgeons, the United Network for Organ Sharing, the Halsted Society, the U.S. Chapter of the International Society of Surgery and the American Surgical Association. He has served as visiting professor at 100 different universities and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Dr. Barker is the recipient of several lifetime achievement awards, including the Roche Pioneer Award of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the Sheen Award of the American College of Surgeons, the Medallion for Scientific Achievement of the American Surgical Association, the Jonathan Rhoads Gold Medal of the American Philosophical Society and the Distinguished Graduate Award of the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He has been designated the 2009 recipient of the Thomas E. Starzl Prize in Transplantation and Immunology and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society of University Surgeons, and in 2010 he was awarded the Medawar Prize of the International Transplant Society.