DAUSSET, JEAN

born Oct. 19, 1916, Toulouse, France in full Jean-Baptiste-Gabriel-Joachim Dausset French hematologist and immunologist whose studies of the genetic basis of the immunological reaction earned him a share (with George Snell and Baruj Benacerraf) of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. After serving with the Free French forces in World War II, Dausset resumed his interrupted medical studies and took his degree from the University of Paris in 1945. He pursued advanced studies in the United States at Harvard University and later returned to France and became laboratory director of the National Blood Transfusion Centre. From 1958 to 1977 he conducted research and taught at the University of Paris, and in 1977 he was named professor of experimental medicine at the Collge de France. In the 1950s Dausset began studying the severe reduction in white blood cells (leukocytes) that occurred in recipients of numerous blood transfusions. He found that cell loss resulted from the action of antibodies that selectively attacked the foreign leukocytes received through transfusion while avoiding the body's own white blood cells. Dausset correctly hypothesized that these antibody reactions were stimulated by certain antigens, located on the surface of foreign white blood cells, that were later called human leukocyte antigens (HLA). These antigens proved to be extremely useful in determining whether tissues from one person might be successfully transplanted to another individual (a process, similar to blood typing, called tissue typing). Dausset also demonstrated that the HLA antigens are programmed by a highly variable gene complex that proved to be analogous to the H-2 complex in the mouse discovered by George Snell. Both systems came to be seen as types of the major histocompatibility complex, which functions in helping the immune system of all vertebrates to distinguish between its own cells and foreign substances that gain entry to the body.