THE SANDOZ PRIZE FOR IMMUNOLOGY(now
known as
the
Novartis Prizes for Immunology )THE SANDOZ PRIZE FOR IMMUNOLOGY(now
known as
the
Novartis Prizes for Immunology )Budapest, Hungary, August 23-28, 1992
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The prize was first awarded in 1990 to Dr. Max Cooper of the University of Alabama, Birmingham US, and Dr. Jacques Miller, of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia, in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the understanding of T and B cells and how they interact in immune responses.
It is presented every two years at major immunology congresses, alternately in Europe and the United States, for major contributions to both basic and clinical immunology, including autoimmune diseases, cancer immunology, immunity to infectious diseases, transplantation, immunolgy and discoveries in immunology leading to therapeutic applications.
This year the prize went to three outstanding scientists for their work in these fields. A fifth of each prize is given in personal recognition of individual achievement, while the remainder goes to support further research by the recipients.
The 1992 Sandoz Prize for Basic Immunology was awarded to Professor Jack L. Strominger, Professor of Biochemistry at Harvard University, US, for what the international Jury of leading immunologists described as his wide-rangeing and innovative contributions to the science of immunology over the past 20 years.
The Sandoz Prize for Clinical Immunology was shared this year by two scientists from Osaka University, Japan. Professor Tadamitsu Kishimoto and Toshio Hirano, both clinicians and researchers, had "contributed significantly", the jury declared, to the understanding of the role of interleukin 6, including its major role in diseases. "This team of researchers", they said, was the first, not only to characterise the molecular structure of an interleukin(interleukin 6, which controls the growth and differentiation of B-cells in the immune system), but also to describe pathological conditions associated with this interleukin. "Their work open up new perspectives in assessing the management of rare diseases such as multiple myeloma, a malignant degeneration of B-cells, and of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.
