2019 lasker basic research award celebrates immunologists jacques miller and max cooper

Abstract

The Lasker Foundation recognizes Jacques Miller (The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) and Max D. Cooper (Emory University School of Medicine) with 2019's Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for demonstrating that B and T cells represent distinct compartments of the adaptive immune system (Figure 1). Their discoveries laid the foundations for modern immunology and groundbreaking medical advances, including monoclonal antibody therapeutics and immunotherapy.In 1960, much of immunology was embroiled in controversy, but researchers of adaptive immunity united over some key principles: Plasma cells were the source of antibodies, proteins with important roles in controlling infection. Lymphocytes could be identified in lymphoid tissues such as the spleen, lymph nodes, and the thymus. However, though immunologists had clearly demonstrated the spleen’s and lymph nodes’ contributions to immune function, the thymus was considered a vestigial lymphatic organ: thymectomy, at least in adult animals, had no discernible effect on immune processes. Vestigial no more As a PhD student at the University of London, Jacques Miller became intrigued by a form of virus-induced murine lymphocytic leukemia originating in the thymus. New reports had revealed that the disease could be transferred to a leukemia-resistant strain of mice by injecting healthy animals with extracts from a sick animal’s leukemic tissues. But there was a twist, as Miller explains: “The filtrate had to