Dausset, Jean Baptiste Gabriel Joachim, << doh SEH, zhawn bah TEEST gah bree EHL zhoh ah KEEM >> (1916-2009), a French hematologist (blood specialist) and immunologist (immune system specialist), made important discoveries about how the body’s immune system is genetically regulated. Dausset was awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, and shared it with George Snell of the United States and Baruj Benacerraf, a Venezuelan-born American (see Benacerraf, Baruj ; Snell, George Davis ).
Dausset established that a few physically linked genes called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exist in human beings. MHC had previously only been known to exist in mice. Dausset investigated how the immune system reacts to frequent blood transfusions. He found there were genetic variations that explained the differences in patients’ reactions. He discovered the gene complex responsible, which he named human lymphocyte antigen group (HLA). His findings enabled doctors to determine whether a transplant of tissue from a particular person will be compatible with the patient who requires it, thus greatly increasing the probability of a successful transplant operation.
Dausset was born on Oct. 19, 1916, in Toulouse, France. During World War II (1939-1945), he served with the Free French forces in North Africa, where he performed blood transfusions. He graduated in medicine at the University of Paris in 1945. Dausset then undertook research at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. In 1958, he joined the faculty of medicine at the University of Paris. In 1977, he became professor of experimental medicine at the College de France in Paris. In 1984, he created a center in Paris, now known as the Jean Dausset Foundation, to establish a genetic map of the human genome (all the genes in a human cell). Dausset died on June 6, 2009.
