Immunologist Rupert Billingham, Transplant Pioneer, Dies at 81

Professor Rupert Billingham, 81, an immunologist who was part of the pioneering team that demonstrated the basic principles of how the body differentiates between its own tissues and those of others, died in Boston on November 16th.

Professor Leslie Baruch Brent, who conducted research with Billingham and Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Sir Peter Medawar in England a half century ago, described Billingham in an obituary in The Independent as "undoubtedly one of the great pioneers" of organ transplantation.

Beyond his role with Medawar in proving the existence of "acquired immunological tolerance," Billingham and Brent are credited with discovery of "graft-versus-host disease," a potentially lethal condition that can afflict transplant recipients where new cells from the donor (the graft) react against the tissues of the recipient (the host).

Billingham moved to the United States in 1957, first to the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. In 1965, he became Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1971, he was appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the University of Texas, where he remained until his retirement in 1986.

He served as President of the (International) Transplantation Society in 1974-76 and of the International Society for the Immunology of Reproduction in 1983-86.

Other sources: The Independent