Melvyn Greaves

Melvin " Mel" F. Greaves ( born September 12, 1941) is a British oncologist, immunologist and researcher.

Life and research

Greaves went to school in Norwich and educated at University College London Medical, focus on immunology, 1968 Melvin was awarded his doctorate for Dr. med. As a post-doctoral researcher Greaves was 1968-1969 at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. After this time, he conducted research at the Department of Immunology at the National Institute of Medical Research in Mill Hill, London; then, from 1972, to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, and from 1976 as head of the Laboratory of Immunology in Lincoln 's Inn Fields in London. From 1984 to 2003 he was Director of Leukaemia Research Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research in London. Since 1985, Greaves is Professor of Cell Biology at the University of London and Chairman of the Department of haemato-oncology at the Cancer Research Institute in London.

Greaves, who deals since the 1970s with cancer research, conducted research on the development of leukemia in children and found evidence of prenatal origin. Since the malignant prenatal genetic changes but only about 1 % of children lead to leukemia, have to be added according to Greaves other factors after birth, with Greaves pursues inter alia, the hypothesis of a sufficient exposure to antigens, which is necessary for the development of adequate immune defense, and their deficiency can trigger a specific abnormal immune response to common infections (delayed infection hypothesis ).

After Greaves almost all cancer cases are multi- causally determined and usually also have causes that are under the control of the individual.

Honors

Writings

• Cancer of the stowaway of evolution, Springer 2002 ( Cancer - the evolutionary legacy, Oxford University Press 2000)
• Infection, immune responses and the aetiology of childhood leukemia, Nature Reviews Cancer, Volume 6, 2006, pp. 193-203