Na Mitchison

Biography

Mitchison demonstrated that transplantation immunity (to allogeneic tumour cells) is mediated by cellular immunity; Discovered that low doses of foreign serum proteins (and many other proteins can) induce tolerance in low dose range. He demonstrated that spontaneous recovery occurs unless antigen remains present, also for a cellular antigen (erythrocytes, in birds); and proved that low dose tolerance applies to T cells, and not to B cells, first with foreign serum proteins and later with a self-protein, F liver antigen. He introduced direct binding assays of antibodies to radioiodine-labelled haptens, and synthesized a novel class of "NIP"haptens. Using these assays, he discovered that the hapten-carrier effect can be explained in terms of T-B cooperation. In collaboration with his students, he discovered the first maker (Thy 1) which is able to divide by lymphocytes into subsets; found affinity isolation of F liver protein, and introduced ELISA assays for it. Further, he used this antigen to discover several instances of dominant inhibition of the immune response, including the first one produced by allelic substitution at I-A.

Research Interest

Immunology