Jean Dausset

Published on Wednesday 1 July 2009 21:16

Nobel Prize-winning immunologist

Born: 19 October, 1916, in Toulouse.

Died: 6 June, 2009, in Mallorca, aged 92.

DR JEAN Dausset was a French immunologist who shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1980 for discoveries about the human immune system that vastly improved the odds of success in organ transplants.

Dausset, who specialised in blood diseases, shared the Nobel for physiology or medicine with two researchers working in the United States, Dr Baruj Benacerraf and Dr George D Snell, for work done over several decades.

The Karolinska Institute in Sweden, which awards the prize, said their research showed why some people were better able to defend themselves against infection than others, and why certain people were at risk for autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.

Dausset's findings transformed our understanding of the way the human immune system works. His main achievement was demonstrating that molecules on the surface of cells, now called HLA antigens, determined an individual's immune response.

These antigens, which are genetically coded by a particular location on one chromosome, determine the body's response to foreign tissue, for example. They set off the production of disease-fighting antibodies and help the immune system distinguish between the body's own cells and invaders.

The research made it possible for transplant surgeons to "type" cells to determine whether a body would accept or reject tissue from a donor. Since then, such tissue typing has been used widely for heart, liver and other transplants.

In addition to demonstrating the existence of these antigens in people, Dausset "elucidated the genetic factors regulating their formation", the Karolinska Institute said.

Working with Dr Felix T Rapaport, Dausset carried out a series of experimental skin grafts that provided evidence that incompatibility of antigens worked against the graft's survival.

Subsequently, to find out if the genetic factors were valid for all humans and not just particular groups, Dausset and his colleagues went to far-flung places to obtain blood samples from people of 54 racial and ethnic groups. They found that the genetic laws controlling the antigens were valid for all groups.

Jean Baptiste Gabriel Joachim Dausset was born in France, the son of a prominent physician. He earned a bachelor's degree at the Lyce Michelet in Paris and enrolled in medical school at the University of Paris in the late 1930s.

With the Second World War looming, he was conscripted into the military before he could complete his studies. After France fell to the German invasion in 1940, he made his way to north Africa and joined the Free French forces.

Before leaving, he gave his identity papers to a Jewish colleague at the Pasteur Institute, to help the man avoid persecution by the Nazis.

In north Africa, he performed blood transfusions and developed an interest in transfusion reactions that helped lead to his later work. He participated in the liberation of France in 1944 and left the military in 1945 as a second lieutenant.

He earned his medical degree and completed his internship and residency at hospitals in Paris before being appointed director of laboratories at the National Blood Transfusion Centre in 1946, a post he held until 1963.

He married Rosita Lpez in 1963 and the couple had two children, Henri and Irene.

Dausset held a number of teaching and research posts, including chief biologist for the Paris General Hospital System; chairman of the immunology department at the University of Paris, where he taught for many years; professor at the Collge de France; and director of research at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research.

He was author or co-author of books including Histocompatibility (1976) and Immunology (1980). He was elected to the Academy of Science and the Academy of Medicine in France.

In 1984, Dausset started a laboratory, later a genome research centre, the Centre for the Study of Human Polymorphism, which co-ordinated the first international collaboration to map the human genome. In 1993 it became the Foundation Jean Dausset-CEPH, a non-profit institute. He retired as president of the foundation in 2003.