December 19th
An American geneticist known as the “father of immunogenetics” who paved the way for modern organ transplants. In 1980, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the genetic factors of histocompatibility that determine the transplantation of tissue from one individual to another. Snell has identified the causative factors as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which is the selection of antigens (which cause antibody production) found in the genetic makeup of all vertebrates. Early in his career, Snell first showed that X-rays can cause mutations in mammals by showing that X-rays induce chromosomal translocations in mice.
