Frank J. Dixon

Frank James Dixon (born March 9, 1920 in Saint Paul, Minnesota , † February 8, 2008 in San Diego ) was an American immunologist and pathologist .

Life

Dixon studied at the University of Minnesota with a bachelor's degree in 1941 and a medical degree (MD) in 1943. After internship during a three-year service in the US Navy at the US Naval Hospital, he did research at Harvard University in pathology and was from 1948 in Washington University Medical School. From 1951 he was at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, where he was professor and head of the pathology department. From 1961 he was at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he founded and headed the Experimental Pathology Department at the Scripps Clinic and Research Institute (later the Scripps Research Institute). From 1965 to 1968 he was a professor in the Faculty of Biology of the UCSD (from 1968 as adjunct professor). From 1970 he was at the Scripps Research Institute, whose department for experimental pathology he headed from 1974 and whose director he was from 1987.

Married to Marion Dixon since 1946, he had two sons and a daughter, Janet Dixon , a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois.

plant

From the 1940s onwards, Dixon developed tracer techniques to mark proteins with radioactive iodine and thus track their path in the body, which he used in studies in immunology. From the 1960s onwards, he showed how certain proteins form immune complexes with antibodies, which can clog the fine capillary channels (in the kidney corpuscle with glomerulum) in the kidneys and thus lead to kidney failure. In doing so, he clarified the nature of a number of kidney diseases, particularly glomerulonephritis , which he studied extensively both experimentally and in clinical studies. He also examined the antigen to antibody ratio for the onset of kidney damage and the role of complement in this process.

Dixon also demonstrated the pathogenic role of these immune complexes in a number of autoimmune diseases such as lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis, as well as in serum sickness .

At the end of the 1960s, together with Michael BA Oldstone, he investigated how a chronic viral infection can trigger an immune reaction which, via the formation of immune complexes, leads to kidney and blood vessel diseases. They also demonstrated that this can also happen when viruses are transmitted from the mother to the embryo, which was previously generally doubted.

With colleagues at the Scripps Institute, he bred a mouse (MRL / 1) that could serve as a model for studying the autoimmune disease lupus erythematosus (SLE) (and rheumatoid arthritis). He showed the existence of a genetic predisposition for the development of SLE and the role of a number of factors that could accelerate the outbreak.

At the beginning of his career in the 1950s, he also classified testicular tumors.

Awards, memberships

He has received numerous awards, including the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1969 , the Dickson Prize in Medicine and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1975, and the Rouse-Whipple Award from the American Association of Pathologists in 1979 (and its Gold-Headed-Cane Award) , the Parke Davis Award from the American Society of Experimental Pathology, in 1989 the Paul Klemperer Award from the New York Academy of Science and in 1990 the Jean Hamburger Award from the International Society of Nephrology. He was a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the New York Academy of Sciences . He was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and an Honorary Doctorate from Washington University.

He was President of the American Association of Immunologists in 1970/1971 and the American Association of Pathologists in 1966.

Web links

• Jeremy Pearce: Obituary in the New York Times (2008)
• Scripps Research Institute, In Memoriam Frank J. Dixon , 2008