Location of Sir William Dunn School of Pathology within central Oxford
The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology[1] is a department within the University of Oxford. Its research programme includes the cellular and molecular biology of pathogens, the immune response, cancer and cardiovascular disease. It teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the medical sciences.
The first course of Pathology teaching in the University of Oxford was given in 1894 by Professor John Burdon Sanderson, Professor of Physiology, (Regius Professor of Medicine from 1895 to 1905), and Dr James Ritchie, who, in 1897, was appointed as the first University Lecturer in Pathology.
The first Department of Pathology was opened in 1901 and functioned until 1927 when it was handed over to Pharmacology on completion of the new purpose-built Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. This had been made possible by a munificent benefaction of £100,000, made in 1922 by the Trustees set up in the will of Sir William Dunn who died in 1912.
The first full Professor of Pathology, Georges Dreyer, a Dane, was appointed in 1907 and remained in post until he died in 1934. He had a mathematical bent and carried out some of the earliest quantitative assays on immunological reactions to infection. His special interest was in the immunology of enteric infections and tuberculosis and he was deeply involved in efforts to produce vaccines for these diseases. He was responsible for the design and manufacture of the earliest oxygen masks worn by pilots in WWI.
He was succeeded in 1935 by Howard Walter Florey[3] an Australian. Florey was a physiologist by training and was dedicated to the application of physiological and chemical methods to pathology. His main interests were in the physiology of the cells in the gut, inflammatory reactions and atherosclerosis. He is, however, best known for the work done under his direction that demonstrated the therapeutic value of penicillin [4] and thus ushered in the age of antibiotics. The purification of penicillin was achieved by Ernst Chain, Norman Heatley and Edward Abraham, with Chain and Abraham eventually developing a theoretical model for its chemical structure, which was later confirmed by Dorothy Hodgkin using X-ray crystallography.
The textbook, General Pathology,[5] based on the preclinical course at the Dunn School, was first published in 1954, and went through four editions. For many years it was the international standard text on the subject.
After penicillin, the work on antibiotics was continued in the Dunn School by Abraham and Guy Newton, who during the 1950s discovered, purified and established the structure of cephalosporin C, the first of the cephalosporin family of antibiotics. This compound and the ring structure on which it was based were patented, and both Newton and Abraham set up trusts out of the royalties that they received. The Edward Penley Abraham Research Fund, the EPA Cephalosporin Fund and the Guy Newton Research Fund are dedicated to the support of medical, biological and chemical research in the Dunn School, Lincoln College and the University of Oxford.
Florey was succeeded as Professor in 1963 by Henry Harris, another expatriate Australian, who had arrived in Oxford in 1952 to do a DPhil under Florey's supervision. Harris's main interest was in cell biology and especially what was later to become the science of somatic cell genetics. With John Watkins he developed the technique of cell fusion for the study of the physiology and genetics of higher cells. They demonstrated that cell fusion provided a general method for the amalgamation of different cell types across the barriers imposed by species differences and by the process of differentiation.[6] This technique was one of the main roots of somatic cell genetics and, in due course, resulted in the production of monoclonal antibodies.
It was also by means of cell fusion that Harris and Goss devised the first systematic method for determining the order of genes along the human chromosome and the distances between them. In 1969 Harris, collaborating with George Klein in Stockholm, showed that when a wide range of malignant tumour cells were fused with normal fibroblasts, the resulting hybrids were not malignant and had the morphological character of fibroblasts.[7] This meant that there were normal genes that had the ability to suppress malignancy. These genes are now known as tumour suppressor genes and work on them has become a world-wide industry. Harris's research was supported mainly by what is now Cancer Research UK, (originally The British Empire Cancer Campaign, BECC, and then The Cancer Research Campaign, CRC.)
In 1977 Gowans, see below, was replaced as Honorary Director of the MRC Cellular Immunology Research Unit by Alan F. Williams, yet another Australian. Williams was mainly concerned with the structural and biochemical aspects of immunological reactions and developed the concept of the immunoglobulin superfamily. In 1992 Williams was elected to succeed Harris as Professor of Pathology but died before he was able to take up the chair.
The former Head of department, Herman Waldmann, was appointed in 1994. Waldmann's principal interest is in the study of immunological tolerance and application of immunology to the clinic. Professor Matthew Freeman, FRS, became Head of Department in January 2013.
James Ritchie (1864-1923): first University lecturer in Pathology in Oxford, 1897. Organised the first undergraduate courses in Pathology and Bacteriology. Helped to fund and build first University department of Pathology in Oxford (1901). Edited standard texts in both Bacteriology (with Muir) and Pathology (with Pembrey). Founder member and first Secretary of the Pathological Society of GB and I. Left Oxford to return to Edinburgh in 1906.
Ernest Ainley-Walker (1871-1955): elected to a fellowship in University College in 1903, the first ‘medical tutor’ in any Oxford College. Published a textbook of Pathology in 1904. Acting Head of Pathology Department when Ritchie left and on several occasions when Dreyer was absent. Also appointed as first Dean of Oxford Medical School from 1922.
A. Duncan Gardner (1884-1978): invited to Oxford in 1915 to set up MRC Bacteriological Standards laboratory with Dreyer. Remained in Pathology until his retirement in 1958. Regius Professor of Medicine 1948–56.
Sir Peter Medawar (1915-1987): graduate student with Howard Florey 1936–9; the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1960 "for discovery of acquired immunological tolerance"
Sir John E. Walker (1941-): graduate student with Edward Abraham 1965–9; the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1997 "for the elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)". Now Director of the MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit in Cambridge.
George Brownlee: Professor of Chemical Pathology (1978-2008). Cloned and expressed human clotting factor IX,[8][9] providing a recombinant source of this protein for Haemophilia B patients who had previously relied on the hazardous blood-derived product. With Peter Palese and co-workers, developed the first "reverse genetics" system for influenza virus, markedly speeding up the process of developing flu vaccines [10]
James L. Gowans: Gowans came to Oxford in 1948 and after getting a 1st in the Physiological Sciences Honours School he researched for a DPhil on new antibiotics under Florey. But after a period working in the Pasteur Institute in Paris he decided to pursue immunological research. Florey suggested he should investigate the lymphocyte, a cell whose life history was at that time completely obscure. During the 1950s Gowans pioneering work sorted out the life cycle of that cell, He showed that the small lymphocyte continuously recirculated from the blood to the lymph and back again to the blood.[11] He also demonstrated that this cell was at the centre of immunological responses. Shortly after he had been elected to the Henry Dale Professorship of the Royal Society (1962) the Medical Research Council established, in the Dunn School, A Cellular Immunology Research Unit, under the honorary direction of Gowans, and this led to the construction of an additional building, (the Leslie Martin building). Gowans remained the Honorary Director of the Unit until he moved, in 1977, to become the Secretary of the Medical Research Council.
Alan Williams: Succeeded Gowans as Director of the MRC Cellular Immunology Unit in 1977. With Cesar Milstein in Cambridge, he was the first to use monoclonal antibody technology to analyse molecular composition of the cell surface, and in doing so identified CD4 for the first time.[12]
Elizabeth RobertsonFRS is a British scientist based at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford.[13] She is Professor of Developmental Biology[14] and a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow.[15] She is best known for her pioneering work in developmental genetics, having demonstrated how genetic mutations could be introduced into the mouse germ line through genetically altered embryonic stem cells.[16]
Fiona PowrieFRS is currently the head of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford. Formerly she was the inaugural Sidney Truelove Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Oxford and the head of the Experimental Medicine Division of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine. Powrie is best known for her seminal studies of regulatory T cells and their role in prevention of immune-mediated pathology, particularly in the context of intestinal inflammation.
Herman WaldmannFRS is a British immunologist, currently Emeritus Professor of Pathology. Waldmann is known for his work on immune tolerance as they relate to grafts and for development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies for clinical application.
Related Research Articles
Sir Alexander Fleming was a Scottish physician and microbiologist, best known for discovering the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance, which he named penicillin. His discovery in 1928 of what was later named benzylpenicillin from the mould Penicillium rubens is described as the "single greatest victory ever achieved over disease." For this discovery, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain.
Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey was an Australian pharmacologist and pathologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Sir Ernst Chain and Sir Alexander Fleming for his role in the development of penicillin.
Sir Peter Brian Medawar was a Brazilian-British biologist and writer, whose works on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance were fundamental to the medical practice of tissue and organ transplants. For his scientific works he is regarded as the "father of transplantation". He is remembered for his wit both in person and in popular writings. Famous zoologists such as Richard Dawkins referred to him as "the wittiest of all scientific writers", and Stephen Jay Gould as "the cleverest man I have ever known".
The Medical Research Council (MRC) is responsible for co-coordinating and funding medical research in the United Kingdom. It is part of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI), which came into operation 1 April 2018, and brings together the UK's seven research councils, Innovate UK and Research England. UK Research and Innovation is answerable to, although politically independent from, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Sir Ernst Boris Chain was a German-British biochemist best known for being a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on penicillin.
Sir Edward Penley Abraham, was an English biochemist instrumental in the development of the first antibiotics penicillin and cephalosporin.
Sir Henry Harris was an Australian professor of medicine at the University of Oxford who led pioneering work on cancer and human genetics in the 2000s.
He was born on 28 March 1884 and educated at Rugby School, before entering University College, University of Oxford to study Law. Upon completing his degree, he rejected the family law practice to study Medicine. After qualifying in 1911 and obtaining the FRCS, he turned to pathology and started to publish papers, with a brief interlude as a Red Cross surgeon in World War I. From 1915, he worked as a bacteriologist in charge of the Standards council, Oxford, and became a Fellow of University College.
The history of penicillin follows a number of observations and discoveries of apparent evidence of antibiotic activity of the mould Penicillium that led to the development of penicillins that became the most widely used antibiotics. Following the identification of Penicillium rubens as the source of the compound in 1928 and with the production of pure compound in 1942, penicillin became the first naturally derived antibiotic. There are anecdotes about ancient societies using moulds to treat infections, and in the following centuries many people observed the inhibition of bacterial growth by various moulds. However, it is unknown if the species involved were Penicillium species or if the antimicrobial substances produced were penicillin.
Herman Waldmann FRS FMedSci is a British immunologist known for his work on therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. As of 2013, he is Emeritus Professor of Pathology at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford.
The John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) is an Australian multidisciplinary translational medical research institute and postgraduate education centre that forms part of the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. The school was founded in 1948 as a result of the vision of Nobel Laureate Sir Howard Florey and was named in honour of Australia's World War II Prime Minister John Curtin, who had died in office a few years earlier.
Guy Geoffrey Frederick Newton was a British rower and biochemist. He was the co-discoverer of cephalosporin C.
Sir James Learmonth Gowans was a British physician and immunologist. In 1945 while studying medicine at King's College Hospital, he assisted at the liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as a voluntary medical student.
Dame Fiona Magaret Powrie is currently the head of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford. Formerly she was the inaugural Sidney Truelove Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Oxford. She is also head of the Experimental Medicine Division of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine.
Donald W. Mason was a British immunologist and professor of immunology in the MRC Cellular Immunology Unit at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford. Professor Mason is best known for his work on regulatory T cells and their role in preventing autoimmunity. His distinction was recognised by his election in 2017 to honorary life membership of the British Society for Immunology.
Gillian Griffiths, FMedSci FRS is a British cell biologist and immunologist. Griffiths was one of the first to show that immune cells have specialised mechanisms of secretion, and identified proteins and mechanisms that control cytotoxic T lymphocyte secretion. Griffiths is Professor of Cell Biology and Immunology at the University of Cambridge and is the Director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research.
Margaret Augusta Jennings, Baroness Florey, née Margaret Augusta Fremantle, was a British scientist who was part of the group at the University of Oxford under Howard Florey who worked on the clinical application of penicillin.
Alan Williams FRS was an Australian immunologist noted for his work on the identification and characterization of cell surface receptors that defined different classes of lymphocytes.
The MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford is a research institute located at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Founded in 1989 by Sir David Weatherall, the institute focuses on furthering our understanding of clinical medicine at a molecular level. It was one of the first institutes of its kind in the world to be dedicated to research in this area.
George Bellamy Mackaness was an Australian professor of microbiology, immunologist, writer and administrator, who researched and described the life history of the macrophage. He showed that by infecting mice with intracellular bacteria, macrophages could be activated to attack other bacteria, triggering further research on "macrophage activation", a term he has come to be associated with.
↑ see biography "Howard Florey: the making of a great scientist" by Gwyn Macfarlane. Publisher Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. ISBN0-19-858161-0
↑ Lectures on general pathology. Florey, H (Ed.) 1954. Loyd-Luke, London (pub). ISBN978-0-85324-054-9
↑ Hybrid Cells Derived from Mouse and Man: Artificial Heterokaryons of Mammalian Cells from Different Species HENRY HARRIS & J. F. WATKINS Nature 205, 640 - 646 (1965).
↑ Nature 223, 363 - 368 (26 July 1969); doi:10.1038/223363a0 Suppression of Malignancy by Cell Fusion HENRY HARRIS, O. J. MILLER, G. KLEIN, P. WORST & T. TACHIBANA
↑ Nature 299, 178 - 180 (1982); doi:10.1038/299178a0 Molecular cloning of the gene for human anti-haemophilic factor IX. K. H. Choo, K. G. Gould, D. J. G. Rees & G. G. Brownlee
↑ Nature 315, 683 - 685 (1985); doi:10.1038/315683a0 Expression of active human clotting factor IX from recombinant DNA clones in mammalian cells.D. S. Anson*, D. E. G. Austen† & G. G. Brownlee*
↑ J Virol. 1999 Nov;73(11):9679-82. Rescue of influenza A virus from recombinant DNA. Fodor E, Devenish L, Engelhardt OG, Palese P, Brownlee GG, García-Sastre A.
↑ J. Physiol. 1959 Apr 23;146(1):54-69. The recirculation of lymphocytes from blood to lymph in the rat. GOWANS JL.
↑ Cell, Vol 12, 663-673, (1977)Analysis of cell surfaces by xenogeneic myeloma-hybrid antibodies: Differentiation antigens of rat lymphocytes. Alan F. Williams, Giovanni Galfrè and Cesar Milstein
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