Philippa Marrack
Philippa Marrack ( born June 28, 1945 in Ewell, Surrey, England ) is a British- American biochemist and immunologist. She is a professor at the University of Colorado in Denver, Colorado.
Life
Philippa Marrack graduated from the University of Cambridge a Bachelor and a Masters (1967 ) in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in biology ( " Biological sciences ", 1970). As a postdoctoral fellow, she worked 1970/1971 at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and from 1971 to 1973 with Richard Dutton at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, California.
In 1974 she took a job as a research assistant in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. There she also received a first junior professorship ( Assistant Professor in 1975, Associate Professor 1979). As of 1976, she did research for the American Heart Association, from 1979 - in part in leading position - for the National Jewish Health, a leading organization of the immunological and allergology research based in Denver, Colorado.
1980 Marrack associate professor in the Department of Biophysics, biochemistry and genetics at the University of Colorado at Denver. Five years later she received a full professorship, which they (as of 2011 ) still enjoys today.
Philippa Marrack is a niece of the immunologist John Marrack. She was married in first marriage with the biochemist Tony Hunter. Numerous works she has published with her future husband, John W. Kappler.
Work
Philippa Marrack has contributed, together with her husband, the immunologist John W. Kappler, important insights into the molecular basis of the recognition of antigens by T cells. They were able to demonstrate, among other things, that the T- cell receptor is comprised of two subunits, and recognizes both MHC molecules and antigens. They also described the T- cell receptor and the timeframe in which takes place its gene rearrangement, and were able to identify the elimination of T- cell clones as a central mechanism of self- tolerance. These findings are fundamental for the understanding of autoimmune diseases, allergies, transplant rejection and vaccinations. In addition, Marrack discovered superantigens that can trigger particularly strong reactions of the immune system.
Marrack is represented in the scientific advisory boards of numerous professional societies and journals. In the years 2000/2001, she served as president of the American Association of Immunologists.