| Citation | Distinguished for her work on the development and function of T lymphocytes in the mammalian immune system. She showed that helper T cells do not recognize antigen alone, but rather antigen in combination with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II proteins, and that T cells use a single receptor to recognize antigen/MHC. She was the first to identify the T cell receptor protein and to characterize its structure. She has developed the first anti-TCR Vbeta monoclonal antibodies, a class of antibodies that have been of great use in characterization of T cell responses in healthy and diseased animals and man. She was the first to demonstrate how self-tolerance is achieved through the death of autoreactive T cell precursors in the thymus before they can attack their own hosts. She was also the first to identify superantigens, showing that one is encoded by mouse mammary tumor viruses. She demonstrated that superantigens operate by binding to the TCR Vbeta regions, hence activating large populations of T cells, which, in turn, secrete toxic levels of cytokines, causing disease in mouse and man. In summary, her work has contributed to most aspects of our current understanding of T cells in mouse and man ranging from the structure and specificity of their receptors to their roles in health and disease. |