Together with René Kuss, Hamburger defined the precise methods and rules for conducting renal transplantation surgery and is attributed with founding the medical discipline of nephrology.
In 1952, at Necker Hospital in Paris, he performed the first successful renal transplant surgery in France, on a 16-year-old carpenter, Marius Renard who damaged his only kidney when he fell off scaffolding, using a kidney donated by the subject's mother.
[citation needed] Hamburger married concert pianist Annette Haas and had 3 children: Michel, Bernard and Françoise.
[citation needed] Just six months later, on 2 August 1992, his son Michel Berger died suddenly of a massive heart attack.
[citation needed] He was elected to life membership to Seat 4 of the Académie française on 18 April 1985, succeeding Pierre Emmanuel, in an official ceremony which took place on 16 January 1986.