George Klein (Georg Klein; born Klein György, 28 July 1925 – 10 December 2016) was a Hungarian–Swedish microbiologist and public intellectual.Ernberg, Ingemar; Kärre, Klas; Wigzell, Hans (16 February 2017)
"George Klein (1925–2016)"
''Nature'', 524, p. 296. Specializing in

cancer research Cancer research is research into cancer to identify causes and develop strategies for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure. Cancer research ranges from epidemiology, molecular bioscience to the performance of clinical trials to evaluate and ...

, he was professor of tumour biology at the

Karolinska Institute The Karolinska Institute (KI; sv, Karolinska Institutet; sometimes known as the (Royal) Caroline Institute in English) is a research-led Medical school, medical university in Solna Municipality, Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden. ...

in Stockholm from 1957–1992, a chair created for him, and as professor emeritus continued to work as research group leader in the microbiology and tumor biology center. According to ''Nature'', the department Klein founded was "international and influential". In the 1960s he and his wife,

Eva Klein Eva Klein ( Eva Fischer; born January 22, 1925) is a Hungarian-Swedish scientist. Klein has worked at the Karolinska Institute since leaving Hungary in 1947. She is regarded as a founder of cancer immunology. Her life and career choices as a you ...

, "laid the foundation for modern tumour

immunology Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see the ...

". In addition to having over 1,385 papers published on cancer and experimental cell research, Klein authored over 13 books in Swedish on a wide range of topics, including essays on the

Holocaust in Hungary The Holocaust in Hungary was the dispossession, deportation, and systematic murder of more than half of the Hungarian Jews, primarily after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944. At the time of the German invasion, Hungary had a Jewis ...

. In 1944 he escaped from being loaded onto a train in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

during the deportation of Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp.Ekselius, Eva (2008). "Bonds with a Vanished Past: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Scandinavia", in Liska, Vivian and Nolden, Thomas (eds.). ''Contemporary Jewish Writing in Europe: A Guide''. Indiana University Press, p. 67. Three of Klein's books have been translated into English: ''The Atheist and the Holy City'' (1990); ''

Pietà The Pietà (; meaning " pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his body was removed from the cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form ...

'' (1992), a collection of essays on whether life is worth living; and ''Live Now'' (1997). He received numerous awards for his scientific work, including the Leopold Griffuel Prize in 1974, the

Harvey Prize Harvey Prize is an annual Israeli award for breakthroughs in science and technology, as well as contributions to peace in the Middle East granted by the Technion in Haifa. History The prize is named for industrialist and inventor Leo Harvey. T ...

in 1975, and the

Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize The Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize was a $250,000 award given by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation for outstanding oncological research. The prize was awarded annually from 1979 to 2005. Of the winners, 15 out of 37 have gone on to win eith ...

in 1979. In 1990 the Swedish Academy awarded him the

Dobloug Prize The Dobloug Prize ( sv, Doblougska priset, no, Doblougprisen) is a literature prize awarded for Swedish and Norwegian fiction. The prize is named after Norwegian businessman and philanthropist Birger Dobloug (1881–1944) pursuant to his bequest. T ...

for his contribution to literature.

Early life

Klein was born Klein György to a Jewish family in the Carpathian Mountains of the Hungarian-speaking part of what is now Eastern Slovakia. When he was five, the family moved to Budapest, Hungary, where he attended the Berzsenyi Gymnasium.

Holocaust in Hungary

Klein wrote in ''

'' and elsewhere about his experiences during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

as a teenager in Budapest, after the

German invasion of Hungary Operation Margarethe (''Unternehmen Margarethe'') was the occupation of Hungary by German Nazi troops during World War II that was ordered by Adolf Hitler. Course of events Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Kállay, who had been in office from ...

in March 1944. Between May and July 1944, 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported by cattle train to the Auschwitz concentration camp, to be "resettled", according to the Germans. Most were, in fact, sent to the

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History ...

s. In May or June 1944, Klein was working as a junior secretary for the

Jewish Council A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every com ...

in Sip Street, Budapest, when he was shown a copy of the Vrba-Wetzler report by his boss, Dr. Zoltán Kohn. The report was an eyewitness account of what was happening in Auschwitz, including details about the gas chambers. The authors,

Rudolf Vrba Rudolf "Rudi" Vrba (born Walter Rosenberg; 11 September 1924 – 27 March 2006) was a Slovak-Jewish biochemist who, as a teenager in 1942, was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. He escaped from the c ...

and Alfréd Wetzler, had escaped from the camp in April that year. They warned that most of the deportees arriving at the camp were being killed, not resettled. Klein tried to warn his family and friends, but no one would listen. When the time came for him to board one of the trains, he ran instead, and ended up hiding in a cellar until January 1945.Klein, George (2011). "Confronting the Holocaust: An Eyewitness Account", in

Randolph L. Braham Randolph Lewis Braham (December 20, 1922 – November 25, 2018) was an American historian and political scientist, born in Romania, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the City College and The Graduate Center of the City U ...

and

William vanden Heuvel William Jacobus vanden Heuvel (April 14, 1930 – June 15, 2021) was an American attorney, businessman, author and diplomat of Belgian descent. He was known for advising Robert F. Kennedy during the latter's campaigns for Senate in 1964 and Pres ...

. ''The Auschwitz Reports and the Holocaust in Hungary''. Columbia University Press. Decades later, he looked for Vrba, then a professor of pharmacology in Canada, to thank him, and subsequently wrote about him and his report in two essays: "The Ultimate Fear of the Traveler Returning from Hell" in ''Pietà'' (first published in Sweden in 1989), and "Confronting the Holocaust: An Eyewitness Account" (2011) in ''The Auschwitz Reports and the Holocaust in Hungary'', edited by

and

Move to Sweden

Karolinska Institute

When the war ended, Klein and a friend traveled to

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also other alternative names) is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat of Csongrád-Csanád county. The University of Szeged is one of the m ...

, a town 300 km from Budapest, to find out whether its university was still functioning. Budapest's university, then known as the Pázmány Péter University, was deserted. They walked part of the way and hitched rides, arriving in Szeged on 4 February 1945. The

University of Szeged , mottoeng = Truth. Bravery. Freedom. , established = , type = Public research university , founder = Emperor Franz Joseph I , affiliation = European University Association, Science Without Borders, Confucius Institute , budget = US$220 m ...

was still functioning, and Klein was admitted as a student. He studied medicine there for three months before continuing his studies in Budapest. Klein worked as an instructor in histology and pathology from 1945 to 1947 at the Pázmány Péter University; it was while working there, in July 1947, that he met his future wife,

Eva Fischer Eva Fischer (Daruvar, 19 November 1920 – Rome, 7 July 2015) was a Croatia-born Italian artist who worked in oils, watercolours, engraving and lithography. Life and work Eva Fischer was born in Daruvar (present-day Croatia) in 1920. Her fath ...

. Shortly after meeting her, he and a group of students were invited by a Jewish student club in Sweden to visit Stockholm and Gothenburg, where Klein was introduced to the

. After talking to

Torbjörn Caspersson Torbjörn Oskar Caspersson (15 October 1910 – 7 December 1997) was a Swedish cytologist and geneticist. He was born in Motala and attended the University of Stockholm, where he studied medicine and biophysics. Contributions Caspersson made sev ...

, he was offered a job there as a research assistant. He returned to Budapest in September 1947 and married Eva, who joined him in Stockholm in March 1948, shortly before the

Hungarian People's Republic The Hungarian People's Republic ( hu, Magyar Népköztársaság) was a one-party socialist state from 20 August 1949 to 23 October 1989. It was governed by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, which was under the influence of the Soviet U ...

came into existence. Klein completed his M.D. at the Karolinska Institute in 1951 and held the position of assistant professor of cell research from 1951 to 1957. Eva Klein completed her M.D., also at the Karolinska Institute, in 1955. In 1957 Klein was promoted to professor of tumor biology, a chair created for him, and he and his wife created the Department of Tumour Biology, with a donation from a Swedish charity, ''Riksföreningen mot cancer''."Professor Emeritus Georg Klein passed away"
Karolinska Institute, 12 December 2016. Klein led the department until 1993, after which he was its research group leader.

Cancer research

In 1960 the Kleins published an important paper in ''

Cancer Research Cancer research is research into cancer to identify causes and develop strategies for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure. Cancer research ranges from epidemiology, molecular bioscience to the performance of clinical trials to evaluate and ...

'', "Demonstration of Resistance against Methylcholanthrene-induced Sarcomas in the Primary Autochthonous Host". The paper showed, as Pramod K. Srivastava wrote, "that tumors could elicit protective immunity against themselves in

syngenic The word "syngenic" or "syngeneic" (from the Greek word for a relative) means genetically identical, or sufficiently identical and immunologically compatible as to allow for transplantation. For example, it may be used for something transplanted fr ...

hosts, and that such immunity was specific to the individual tumor". According to Klein's obituary in ''Nature'', researchers at the time believed that cancers carried "a common

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 ...

that the immune system could recognize. The Kleins and their colleagues used a chemical

carcinogen A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive subs ...

to induce tumours in mice, surgically removed these and immunized the animals with irradiated cells from their own tumours. Next, the group inoculated mice with viable cancer cells and demonstrated that the immune system would only reject cancerous cells if they came from the original tumour. This clarified the field: the immune system could recognize and reject cancers, in a way that was specific to each individual." Klein later made a connection between the Epstein-Barr virus and

lymphoma Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enla ...

s and other cancers. He was responsible, with Henry Harris, for establishing the "phenomenon of tumour suppression ... using the technique of somatic cell hydridization".

Personal life

George and Eva Klein had three children together: a son who is a mathematician, and two daughters, one of whom is a medical doctor and the other a playwright. The couple described the beginning of their careers and how they met, in an article they wrote together in 1989, "How One Thing has Led to Another". Klein died on 10 December 2016 at the age of 91.

Awards and honors

Klein was the recipient of many awards and honorary doctorates for his research and literary contributions. In November 2003 Sveriges Television broadcast a documentary about him, '' Georg Klein'', by Ulf von Strauss. He was a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

(1967), the United States National Academy of Sciences (1973), and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

(1979). His awards included: *(1974) Leopold Griffuel Prize *(1975)

*(1979)

*(1990)

*(1996) Kaposi Award, 1996 *(1997) Chester Stock Award,

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...

*(1998) Orden Nacional al Mérito de la República de Colombia *(1998)

Robert Koch gold medal The Robert Koch Medal and Award are two prizes awarded annually by the German for excellence in the biomedical sciences. These awards grew out of early attempts by German physician Robert Koch to generate funding to support his research into the ...

*(1998) Institute of Human Virology, Lifetime Achievement Award *(1999) Prize of the Brupbacher Foundation, Zürich *(2002) Ingemar Hedenius Prize *(2010) Royal Award of the Swedish Academy *(2015) Gerard Bonnier Prize

Selected works

Klein published over 1,385 papers and 13 books, including:

Books

*Klein, George (2014)

984 Year 984 ( CMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Spring – German boy-king Otto III (4-years old) is seized by the deposed Henry II ...

br> ''I stället för hemland: memoarer''
("In Place of a Homeland"). Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. *Klein, George (1992) 987br>''The Atheist and the Holy City: Encounters and Reflections''
MIT Press. First published as ''Ateisten och den heliga staden: möten och tankar''. *Klein, George (1992) 989br>''Pietà''
MIT Press. *Klein, George (1990). ''Om kreativitet och flow''. Stockholm: Brombergs. *Klein, George and Gyllensten, Lars (1991). ''Hack i häl på Minerva''. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. *Klein, George and Ahlmark, Per (1991). ''Motståndet: Arton brev om död och liv''. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. *Klein, George (1995). ''Den sjunde djävulen''. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. *Klein, George (1997). ''Live Now: Inspiring Accounts of Overcoming Adversity''. Prometheus Books. First published as ''Utvägen''. *Klein, George (1998). ''Korpens blick : essäer om vetenskap och moral''. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. *Klein, George (2001). ''Så jag kan svara döden, när den kommer : essäer''. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. *Klein, George (2001). ''Vak akarat es önozö dns''. Budapest: Magvetö. *Klein, George (2006). ''Meteorer : tre lysande särlingar''. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. *Klein, George (2011). ''Jag återvänder aldrig. Essäer i Förintelsens skugga''. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. *Klein, George (2015). ''Resistens. Tankar om motstånd''. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag.

Papers, book chapters

*Klein, George (2011). "Confronting the Holocaust: An Eyewitness Account", in

and

(eds.). ''The Auschwitz Reports and the Holocaust in Hungary''. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 255–283. *Klein, George (2008)
"Reversion of tumorigenicity in an EBV-converted Burkitt's lymphoma line"
in Gregory R. Bock and Joan Marsh (eds.). ''Genetic Analysis of Tumour Suppression''. New York: John Wiley & Sons. *Klein, George; Klein, Eva (16 May 1985). "Evolution of tumours and the impact of molecular oncology". ''Nature''. 315, pp. 190–195. *Zur Hausen, Harald; Schulte-Holthausen, Heinrich; Klein, George, et al. (12 December 1970). "Epstein–Barr virus in Burkitt's lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma: EBV DNA in biopsies of Burkitt tumours and anaplastic carcinomas of the nasopharynx". ''Nature''. 228, pp. 1056–1058. *Sjögren, Hans Olof; Hellström; Ingegerd and Klein, George (April 1961)
"Transplantation of Polyoma Virus-induced Tumors in Mice"
''Cancer Research''. 21(3), pp. 329–337. *Klein, George; Sjögren, Hans Olof; Klein, Eva and Hellström, Karl Erik (December 1960)
"Demonstration of Resistance against Methylcholanthrene-induced Sarcomas in the Primary Autochthonous Host"
''Cancer Research''. 20(11), pp. 1561–1572.