|
Anthony Clifford Allison (21 August 1925 – 20 February 2014) was a South African geneticist and medical scientist who made pioneering study on the genetic resistance to malaria.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate/obituary.aspx?pid=169878114 )〕 Schooling in Kenya, he completed his higher education in South Africa, and obtained BSc in Medical Science from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1947. He earned DPhil from the University of Oxford in 1952. After working at the Radcliffe Infirmary for two years, he worked as post-doctoral student to Linus Pauling in 1954. After teaching medicine for three years at Oxford, he worked at the Medical Research Council in London. From 1978 he simultaneously worked at the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD) as its Director, and at the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Immunology Laboratory, both in Nairobi. He became the Vice President for Research at Syntex Corporation in 1981 till 1994. While a graduate student at Oxford, Allison joined a vocational Oxford University Expedition to Mount Kenya in 1949. He first noticed from blood samples he collected that there was an unsually high occurrence of sickle-cell trait in its less harmful (heterozygous) condition. He conceived the idea that it could be an advantageous adaptation to people constantly exposed to malaria. After he completed his dostoral research at Oxford in 1953, he investigated further. In 1954 he discovered, confirming his preconception, that people with sickle-cell trait are resistant to the deadly falciparum malaria. In the 1970s, Allison had worked out the enzyme, inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase, as a key molecule of the immune response in autoimmune diseases and in organ transplantation. Based on this, he tested the otherwise abandoned antibiotic, mycophenolate mofetil, as an inhibitor of the enzyme. After experimental success, with his wife, Elsie M. Eugui, he develooped a safer derivative which was eventually approved as an immunosuppressive drug called CellCept. He contributed more that 400 technical papers and edited 12 books. == Biography == Allison was born in East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa. His father was a World War I British veteran and keen polo player, who left Britain in 1919 for better farming life in East Africa. His father had a chrysanthemum farm at Mawingo in upper Gilgil, Kenya, overlooking the Great Rift Valley, where he spent most of his childhood. He entered boarding school for his primary education. He returned to South Africa for higher education and obtained his BSc in Medical Science at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. In 1947 he entered Merton College, Oxford, from where he earned his DPhil with medical degree in 1952. He then found employment at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, where he worked for two years till 1954. However, most of his 1953 work was in Kenya. Receiving the George Herbert Hunt Travelling Scholarship for 1953, he joined the Nobel laureate Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology for post-doctoral research in 1954. He returned to England to take up teaching in medicine at University of Oxford. After three years in Oxford he was employed in the Medical Research Council in London, where he worked for twenty years. He first joined the MRC National Institute for Medical Research, and then the Clinical Research Centre. In 1978 he was appointed as Director of the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD) in Nairobi, Kenya. He simultaneously worked at the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Immunology Laboratory in Nairobi. In 1981, he became the Vice President for Research at Syntex Corporation at Palo Alto, California. As Syntex was acquired by Hoffman LaRoche in 1994, he was given retirement. He continued to teach human genetics at Stanford University and participated in many therapeutic programmes at Alavita Pharmaceuticals. He spent his last 30 years at his home in Belmont, California. He died on 20 February 2014 as a result of complications of the end stage of pulmonary fibrosis, which he had been suffering from.〔 He was survived by his second wife, and two sons.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anthony Clifford Allison」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|