(Nicholas) Avrion Mitchison (born 5 May 1928) is a British
zoologist
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...
and immunologist.
[ ]
Biography
Mitchison was born in 1928, the son of the Labour politician
Dick Mitchison
Gilbert Richard Mitchison, Baron Mitchison, (23 March 1894 – 14 February 1970) was a British Labour politician.
Born in Staines, Mitchison was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford, and became a barrister ( called to the bar in 1 ...
(Baron Mitchison of Carradale in the County of Argyll, who died 1970) and his wife, the writer
Naomi (née Haldane). His uncle was the biologist
J.B.S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolog ...
and his grandfather the
physiologist John Scott Haldane
John Scott Haldane (; 2 May 1860 – 14/15 March 1936) was a British physician and physiologist famous for intrepid self-experimentation which led to many important discoveries about the human body and the nature of gases. He also experimen ...
. His elder brothers are the bacteriologist
Denis Mitchison and the zoologist
Murdoch Mitchison
The Honounorable John Murdoch Mitchison FRS, FRSE (11 June 1922, Oxford – 17 March 2011, Edinburgh) was a British zoologist.
Background
Family
Mitchison was the son of the Labour politician Dick Mitchison and his wife, the writer Naomi ...
. His son is the cell biologist
Tim Mitchison
Timothy John Mitchison is a cell biologist and systems biologist and Hasib Sabbagh Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School in the United States. He is known for his discovery, with Marc Kirschner, of dynamic instability in microt ...
.
He is married to Lorna Margaret Martin, daughter of Maj-Gen
John Simson Stuart Martin, CSI. They have five children, Tim, Matthew, Mary, Hannah and Ellen. Two are cell biologists
Tim Mitchison
Timothy John Mitchison is a cell biologist and systems biologist and Hasib Sabbagh Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School in the United States. He is known for his discovery, with Marc Kirschner, of dynamic instability in microt ...
and Hannah M. Mitchison.
He was educated at
Leighton Park School
Leighton Park School is a co-educational independent school for both day and boarding pupils in Reading in South East England. The school's ethos is closely tied to the Quaker values, having been founded as a Quaker School in 1890. The school's ...
and secured a Classics scholarship to
Balliol College
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...
. He received his
DPhil
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
at
New College, Oxford with Nobelist Sir
Peter Medawar
Sir Peter Brian Medawar (; 28 February 1915 – 2 October 1987) was a Brazilian-British biologist and writer, whose works on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance have been fundamental to the medical practice of tissu ...
. This was followed by a long career as Professor of Zoology at
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
, where his uncle
J.B.S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolog ...
taught, at the National Institute of Medical Research at Mill Hill and as founding Director of the German Rheumatism Research Center Berlin (DRFZ) in Germany. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at University College London.
Mitchison's contributions to immunology include the discovery of both low dose and high dose tolerance for a single antigen,
a surprising result in the context of basic
clonal selection theory
In immunology, clonal selection theory explains the functions of cells of the immune system (lymphocytes) in response to specific antigens invading the body. The concept was introduced by Australian doctor Frank Macfarlane Burnet in 1957, in an ...
, but which can be understood in the context of
immune network theory The immune network theory is a theory of how the adaptive immune system works, that has been developed since 1974 mainly by Niels Jerne and Geoffrey W. Hoffmann. The theory states that the immune system is an interacting network of lymphocytes and m ...
. He was also a founder member of the
British Society for Immunology
The British Society for Immunology, or BSI, is a UK-based organisation of British immunologists but accepts members from all countries. It was founded in November 1956 by John H. Humphrey, Robin Coombs, Bob White, and Avrion Mitchison and is on ...
alongside
John H. Humphrey
John Herbert Humphrey Order of the British Empire#Commander, CBE Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, FRCP (16 December 1915 – 25 December 1987) was a UK, British bacteriologist and immunologist.
Education ...
, Bob White, and
Robin Coombs.
Research
Mitchison discovered the transference of
transplantation immunity
Immunity may refer to:
Medicine
* Immunity (medical), resistance of an organism to infection or disease
* ''Immunity'' (journal), a scientific journal published by Cell Press
Biology
* Immune system
Engineering
* Radiofrequence immunity desc ...
by
sensitised cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
s, thereby providing evidence relating transplantation immunity to
hypersensitivity
Hypersensitivity (also called hypersensitivity reaction or intolerance) refers to undesirable reactions produced by the normal immune system, including allergies and autoimmunity. They are usually referred to as an over-reaction of the immune ...
reactions of the 'delayed' type. He devised a method for revealing mixtures of cells of different
genotypes
in vivo
Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, and ...
and used it to be equal first in demonstrating that the 'radiation recovery factor' is a
graft
Graft or grafting may refer to:
*Graft (politics), a form of political corruption
* Graft, Netherlands, a village in the municipality of Graft-De Rijp
Science and technology
*Graft (surgery), a surgical procedure
*Grafting, the joining of plant t ...
of living cells and not a
humoral agent. He carried out the most exact quantitative analysis of tolerance hitherto attempted in a cellular system and proved that persistence of tolerance depends on persistence of
antigen
In immunology, an antigen (Ag) is a molecule or molecular structure or any foreign particulate matter or a pollen grain that can bind to a specific antibody or T-cell receptor. The presence of antigens in the body may trigger an immune respons ...
.
Awards and honours
Mitchison was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1967.
[ One or more of the preceding sentences may incorporate text from the royalsociety.org website where "all text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License."] He is also a foreign member of the
National Academy of Sciences, USA. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from the
Weizmann Institute
The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli univ ...
and in 1995 was awarded the
Novartis Prize for Basic Immunology
The Novartis Prizes for Immunology were established in 1990 by Sandoz to honour outstanding research in immunology, and expanded to their current form in 1992. Prizes for basic and clinical immunology are awarded every 3 years. A special prize was ...
.
Avrion Mitchison Prize for Rheumatology
In honor of its Founding Director, the Deutsches Rheuma-Forschungszentrum Berlin (DRFZ), a Leibniz Institute, annually awards the Avrion Mitchison Prize to young scientists contributing significantly to understanding and treating rheumatic diseases. Donated by the Ernst Schering Foundation until 2018, the prize is now awarded by the DRFZ. The prize money is 3.000 Euros.
References
External links
*
Avrion Mitchison Prize of the DRFZ Berlin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchison, Nicholas Avrion
1928 births
Living people
British zoologists
British immunologists
Fellows of the Royal Society
People educated at Leighton Park School
Alumni of New College, Oxford
Academics of University College London
Younger sons of barons
Presidents of the Zoological Society of London
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Foreign Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy
Jodrell Professors of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy