Niels K. JerneBorn 23 Dec 1911; died 7 Oct 1994 at age 82. Niels Kaj Jerne was a Danish immunologist who shared (with César Milstein and Georges Köhler) the 1984 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Jerne has provided three important theories of immunology. (1) Natural selection theory of anti-body formation (1955) which initiated modern cellular immunology since the1960s. (2) Somatic generation theory of the generation of antibody diversity (1968) which brought together molecular and cellular immunology in the 1970s. (3) Network theory (1974), which explains a complex system of interactions when the immune system is activated to counteract disease and then is shut down after the need passes. The principles of this theory are beginning to be exploited in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.« |
