| Citation | His early studies were on the mechanism of T-B cell cooperation in the immune response. He was one of the early workers to recognise the great analytical power of limiting dilution assays in cellular immunology (and with Ivan Lefkovitz has written an important monograph on this topic). Using limiting dilution he discovered that T cell help is "monogamous" (i.e. one T cells helps only one B cell even if several are present) excluding a whole range of explanations for cooperation.
His more recent work has been on the use of monoclonal antibodies to cell surfaces both to investigate and to modulate the immune response especially in relation to bone marrow transplantation. In this extremely important area he directs a group that leads the world. He has devised ways to deplete mice permanently of helper and cytotoxic T cell populations either singly or together and has thus been able to assess their functions in vivo in a variety of situations, such as graft rejection and immunity to virus infection. He has also shown that in mice temporarily deprived of helper T cells permanent tolerance can be induced to some injected antigens.
His anti-human T cell antibody - CAMPATH-1 - which kills T lymphocytes in the presence of human complement - has improved extremely valuable clinically both in purging bone marrow in vitro and in treating Graft versus Host disease in vivo. It is almost certainly the most successful and widely used therapeutic monoclonal antibody. |