Rolf M. Zinkernagel

Rolf Martin Zinkernagel ( born January 6, 1944 in Riehen, Basel-Stadt ) is a Swiss physician and experimental immunologist. He is a Nobel Prize winner for Medicine ( 1996).

Life

Zinkernagel studied medicine and received his doctorate in 1970 at the University of Basel. He was a member of the Zofingia. In 1975 he received the Ph. D. at the Australian National University in Canberra. From 1976 to 1979 he was a professor at the Scripps Research Institute, then he went to the University of Zurich, where he remained until 1992. Later he worked at the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University Hospital Zurich. In February 2008, Rolf Zinkernagel retired.

Together with the Australian Peter Doherty in 1973 he discovered how the immune system recognizes virus-infected cells. For this insight both got the 1996 Nobel Prize for Medicine. Virus Infected cells are recognized and destroyed by the immune system by killer T cells. With Doherty he discovered upon examination with meningitis virus infected mice that these killer T cells not only need a virus antigen for the detection of virus- infected cells, but also the MHC complexes, which were known before, that they at in tissue rejection transplants play a role. Their role in the immune defense against viruses came as a surprise.

Zinkernagel is thus the 24th Swiss Nobel laureate. In 1983, Zinkernagel was awarded the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, 1986, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, 1987 William B. Coley Award and 1995 Albert Lasker Award for Basic of Medical Research. Since 1994 he is member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, since 2008 National Academy of Sciences.