Alan Williams FRS (25 May 1945 – 9 April 1992) was an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

immunologist noted for his work on the identification and characterization of cell surface

receptors Receptor may refer to: *Sensory receptor, in physiology, any structure which, on receiving environmental stimuli, produces an informative nerve impulse *Receptor (biochemistry), in biochemistry, a protein molecule that receives and responds to a n ...

that defined different classes of lymphocytes.

Education

Williams studied agricultural science at

Melbourne University The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

in Australia. From there, he went on to perform his graduate work with William Elliott on the topic of

avian Avian may refer to: *Birds or Aves, winged animals *Avian (given name) (russian: Авиа́н, link=no), a male forename Aviation *Avro Avian, a series of light aircraft made by Avro in the 1920s and 1930s *Avian Limited, a hang glider manufacture ...

erythropoiesis Erythropoiesis (from Greek 'erythro' meaning "red" and 'poiesis' "to make") is the process which produces red blood cells (erythrocytes), which is the development from erythropoietic stem cell to mature red blood cell. It is stimulated by decrea ...

Career and research

Following his graduate work he moved to the department of

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in the UK to perform post-doctoral studies with Professor Rodney Porter. Following the retirement of Jim Gowans in 1977, Williams took up the mantle as head of the Cellular Immunology Unit (CIU) at the

Sir William Dunn School of Pathology The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology is a department within the University of Oxford. Its research programme includes the cellular and molecular biology of pathogens, the immune response, cancer and cardiovascular disease. It teaches undergra ...

, and was due to succeed Henry Harris as head of department before his untimely death in 1992. It was in the lab of Rodney Porter than he began the seminal work which would exemplify his career, namely the characterization of

on B and T lymphocytes. Williams has been credited with several major contributions. His group purified and characterized the

Thy1 Thy-1 or CD90 (Cluster of Differentiation 90) is a 25–37 k Da heavily N-glycosylated, glycophosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchored conserved cell surface protein with a single V-like immunoglobulin domain, originally discovered as a thymocyte anti ...

molecule and from this work came the proposal of the concept of the immunoglobulin superfold,. The success linked to this work on

prompted Williams to expand the search for surface molecules on lymphocytes that could be used to characterize these cells. Establishing a collaboration with Cesar Milstein, who had recently developed hybridoma technology along with Georges Kohler, Williams made a number of discoveries including identification of a cell surface molecule that later proved to be the

coreceptor A co-receptor is a cell surface receptor that binds a signalling molecule in addition to a primary receptor in order to facilitate ligand recognition and initiate biological processes, such as entry of a pathogen into a host cell. Properties The t ...

CD4 which identifies

helper T cells The T helper cells (Th cells), also known as CD4+ cells or CD4-positive cells, are a type of T cell that play an important role in the adaptive immune system. They aid the activity of other immune cells by releasing cytokines. They are considere ...

. Following this his group generated antibodies that identified rat

CD8 CD8 (cluster of differentiation 8) is a transmembrane glycoprotein that serves as a co-receptor for the T-cell receptor (TCR). Along with the TCR, the CD8 co-receptor plays a role in T cell signaling and aiding with cytotoxic T cell-antigen int ...

, a marker of cytotoxic

T cells A T cell is a type of lymphocyte. T cells are one of the important white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response. T cells can be distinguished from other lymphocytes by the presence of a T-cell re ...

as well as rat

CD45 Protein tyrosine phosphatase, receptor type, C also known as PTPRC is an enzyme that, in humans, is encoded by the ''PTPRC'' gene. PTPRC is also known as CD45 antigen (CD stands for cluster of differentiation), which was originally called leuko ...

. His group also demonstrated that

was retained on the cell surface through a

lipid anchor Lipid-anchored proteins (also known as lipid-linked proteins) are proteins located on the surface of the cell membrane that are covalently attached to lipids embedded within the cell membrane. These proteins insert and assume a place in the bilay ...

rather than via

transmembrane domains A transmembrane domain (TMD) is a membrane-spanning protein domain. TMDs generally adopt an alpha helix topological conformation, although some TMDs such as those in porins can adopt a different conformation. Because the interior of the lipid b ...

, something which had not previously been appreciated but which is now known to be a feature of many

Personal life

Alan was noted as being a very direct and critical scientist with high standards. Famously, he demolished the office of Professor Jim Gowans to make way for more laboratory space upon taking over as head of the Cellular Immunology Unit.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Alan Frederick 1945 births 1992 deaths Australian immunologists Australian Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society