Immunology and Immunotherapy
The People (13)
Elie Metchnikoff
Russian-born zoologist (1845–1916) who discovered phagocytosis, sharing the 1908 Nobel, and later championed soured milk and gut bacteria for health and ageing.
Read the deep dive →Emil von Behring
Prussian-born physician (1854–1917) whose diphtheria antitoxin turned the blood of immunized animals into medicine, earning the very first Nobel in Medicine in 1901.
Read the deep dive →Karl Landsteiner
Vienna-born physician (1868–1943) who discovered the ABO blood groups, showed polio is caused by a virus and co-discovered the Rh factor (Nobel 1930).
Read the deep dive →Charles Richet
French physiologist (1850–1935) who discovered anaphylaxis in 1902, when a second dose of a marine toxin killed a dog, winning the 1913 Nobel.
Read the deep dive →Burnet Medawar
Australian virologist Macfarlane Burnet supplied the theory and Peter Medawar the skin-graft proof of acquired immunological tolerance, sharing the 1960 Nobel Prize.
Read the deep dive →Benacerraf Dausset Snell
Baruj Benacerraf, Jean Dausset and George Snell discovered the MHC, the gene-coded HLA badges on cells that govern immune responses and tissue matching (Nobel 1980).
Read the deep dive →Jerne Kohler Milstein
Niels Jerne's theories of antibody formation and Georges Köhler and César Milstein's 1975 hybridoma, the first source of monoclonal antibodies, shared the 1984 Nobel.
Read the deep dive →Edelman Porter
American Gerald Edelman and Englishman Rodney Porter worked out the Y-shaped chemical structure of antibodies, the molecule behind every -mab drug (Nobel 1972).
Read the deep dive →Beutler Hoffmann Steinman
Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann found the Toll-like sensors that detect microbes, and Ralph Steinman discovered the dendritic cell, sharing the 2011 Nobel Prize.
Read the deep dive →Susumu Tonegawa
Japanese molecular biologist (1939–2026) who showed that developing immune cells cut and rejoin their own DNA to create antibody diversity, winning the unshared 1987 Nobel.
Read the deep dive →Doherty Zinkernagel
Australian veterinarian Peter Doherty and Swiss physician Rolf Zinkernagel showed in 1973 that killer T cells recognise virus only alongside the body's own MHC (Nobel 1996).
Read the deep dive →Allison Honjo
Texan immunologist James Allison and Kyoto immunologist Tasuku Honjo found the CTLA-4 and PD-1 brakes on T cells, founding checkpoint cancer immunotherapy (Nobel 2018).
Read the deep dive →Brunkow Ramsdell Sakaguchi
Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi discovered regulatory T cells and their master gene Foxp3, which stop the immune system attacking the body (Nobel 2025).
Read the deep dive →Everyone in this group is a Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, grouped by what the prize was awarded for. How the immune system tells self from other, and how it can be steered — from the first antitoxin through antibody structure to checkpoint inhibitors and regulatory T cells.