Brigitte A. Askonas

Brigitte "Ita" Alice Askonas (born April 1, 1923 in Vienna ; † January 9, 2013 ) was a British immunologist born in Austria , who was particularly concerned with the formation of antibodies and cellular immunology.

Life

Brigitte Askonas studied biochemistry at McGill University (Bachelor 1944, Master 1946, doing biochemical research in psychiatry) and was from 1949 at Cambridge University , where she received her doctorate in 1952 with Malcolm Dixon (on muscle enzymes ). From 1952 she was a scientist at the British National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill near London, first in the biochemistry department and, when it was founded in 1957, in the immunology department under its first head John Humphrey . From 1976 to 1988 she was the director of immunology at Mill Hill. In addition, she spent a sabbatical year at Harvard University in 1961/62 (Department of Microbiology with Mahlon Hoagland), in 1971/72 at the newly founded Institute for Immunology in Basel and from 1989 to 1994 visiting professor at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School. From 1995 she was visiting professor at Imperial College , where she has been a Fellow since 2000. Since 1989 she has also been associated with the Molecular Immunology Group at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

In 1957 she succeeded in cloning B cells in vivo. Later she mainly dealt with the mechanism of how T cell antigens are recognized. She not only worked with the typical experimental antigens of virology, but also with real pathogens. She discovered that killer T cells recognize host cells infected by the flu virus, regardless of the subtype of the virus. This also has implications for the development of new vaccines, previously based on antibodies, all of which are specific to certain subtypes of the flu virus. She also looked at how trypanosomes suppress the immune system's response.

In this context, she was one of the first to clone T cells, thus doing pioneering work, as she did before with the cloning of B cells.

Her undergraduate and post graduate students at Mill Hill include Michael Bevan , Andrew McMichael , Emil Unanue , among others . She also influenced Susumu Tonegawa , who later won the Nobel Prize in Basel in 1971 , was still inexperienced in immunology at the time.

She was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1973), of which she was Vice President in 1989/90, and an external member of the National Academy of Sciences (2007). In 2007 she received the Robert Koch Medal and in 1973 the Feldberg Foundation Prize. In 1994 she became an honorary member of the German Society for Immunology, in 1988 the British Society of Immunology, 1989 the French Society for Immunology and 1977 the American Society of Immunology. In 1987 she received an honorary doctorate from McGill University and from 1982 to 1987 she was an honorary professor at the University of Warwick . She became an Honorary Fellow of Cambridge New Hall and Girton Colleges. In 1998 she was a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

She also worked in various committees of the WHO , among others for many years in the one for immunology of leprosy.

For the Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences she wrote several biographical obituaries by immunologists ( Niels Kaj Jerne , César Milstein , John Herbert Humphrey ).

literature

• Anne O'Garra: Brigitte Askonas (1923–2013). The 'Grand Dame' of Immunology. In: Nature . Volume 494, No. 7435, 2013, p. 37, doi: 10.1038 / 494037a

Web links

• Laudation for the Robert Koch Medal from Stefan Kaufmann
• CV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biographical data of Brigitte Alice Askonas in the obituary in: The Guardian
2. ↑ Laudation for the Koch medal from Kaufmann 2007