Apoptosis is a form of programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms. Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (morphology) and death. These changes include blebbing, cell shrinkage, nuclear fragmentation, chromatin condensation, DNA fragmentation, and mRNA decay. The average adult human loses between 50 and 70 billion cells each day due to apoptosis. For an average human child between eight and fourteen years old, approximately twenty to thirty billion cells die per day.
Bonnie Lynn Bassler is an American molecular biologist; the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University; and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She has researched cell-to-cell chemical communication in bacteria and discovered key insights into the mechanism by which bacteria communicate, known as quorum sensing. She has contributed to the idea that disruption of chemical signaling can be used as an antimicrobial therapy.
Howard Robert Horvitz ForMemRS NAS AAA&S APS NAM is an American biologist best known for his research on the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, together with Sydney Brenner and John E. Sulston, whose "seminal discoveries concerning the genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death" were "important for medical research and have shed new light on the pathogenesis of many diseases".
Pamela Jane Bjorkman NAS, AAAS is an American biochemist. She is the David Baltimore Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Her research centers on the study of the three-dimensional structures of proteins related to Class I MHC, or Major Histocompatibility Complex, proteins of the immune system and proteins involved in the immune responses to viruses. Bjorkman is most well known as a pioneer in the field of structural biology.
Andrew David Hamilton Wyllie FMedSci FRS was a Scottish pathologist. In 1972, while working with electron microscopes at the University of Aberdeen he realised the significance of natural cell death. He and his colleagues John Kerr and Alastair Currie called this process apoptosis, from the use of this word in an ancient Greek poem to mean "falling off". He completed postdoctoral training in Cambridge University and became Professor of Experimental Pathology at the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1992. He left Edinburgh for a chair at Cambridge in 1998 where he continued to lecture to undergraduate medical and natural sciences students. His works have contributed to the understanding of apoptosis in health and in disease. Apoptosis is used during early development to eliminate unwanted cells; for example, those between the fingers of a developing hand. In adults, apoptosis is used to rid the body of cells that have been damaged beyond repair. Apoptosis also plays a critical role in preventing cancer. If apoptosis is for some reason prevented, it can lead to uncontrolled cell division and the subsequent development of a tumour.
Kimishige "Kimi" Ishizaka was a Japanese immunologist who, with his wife Teruko Ishizaka, discovered the antibody class Immunoglobulin E (IgE) in 1966–1967. Their work was regarded as a major breakthrough in the understanding of allergy. He was awarded the 1973 Gairdner Foundation International Award and the 2000 Japan Prize for his work in immunology.
Sir John Stewart Savill, FRS, FMedSci is the Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council (MRC) in the UK and the Head of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine and a Vice Principal of the University of Edinburgh.
Harald zur Hausen NAS EASA APS is a German virologist and professor emeritus. He has done research on cervical cancer and discovered the role of papilloma viruses in cervical cancer, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008.
John Wayne Kappler is a professor in the Department of Integrated Immunology at National Jewish Health. His principal research is in T cell biology, a subject he collaborates on with his wife Philippa Marrack. In 1983 they discovered the T cell receptor, together with Ellis Reinherz and James Allison.
The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is an annual award bestowed by the Paul Ehrlich Foundation since 1952 for investigations in medicine. It carries a prize money of 120,000 Euro. The prize awarding ceremony is traditionally held on March 14, the birthday of Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich, in the St. Paul's Church, Frankfurt am Main.
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.
Frederick W. Alt is an American geneticist. He is a member of the Immunology section of the National Academy of Sciences and a Charles A. Janeway Professor of Pediatrics, and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He is the Director of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the Boston Children's Hospital. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, since 1987.
Peter K. Vogt is an American molecular biologist, virologist and geneticist. His research focuses on retroviruses and viral and cellular oncogenes.
James Patrick Allison is an American immunologist and Nobel laureate who holds the position of professor and chair of immunology and executive director of immunotherapy platform at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas.
Cesare Montecucco is an Italian pathologist and full professor at University of Padua, Italy. He was awarded the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2011 for his researches on tetanus, botulism, anthrax and Helicobacter pylori-related diseases.
Sir Alastair Robert Currie PRSE FRCPE FRCPGlas FRCP FRCPath LLD was a Scottish pathologist, who was Professor of Pathology, at Edinburgh University, 1972–86, and then emeritus. He was eminent in the field of cancer research and humanitarian causes.
Andrea Ablasser is a German immunologist, who works as a full professor of Life Sciences at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Her research has focused on how the innate immune system is able to recognise virus-infected cells and pathogens.
Carl H. June is an American immunologist and oncologist. He is currently the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He is most well known for his research into T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
R. John Collier is an American microbiologist and biochemist. He is the Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Emeritus at Harvard Medical School.
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.