![Group photo of London Medical students who went to Belsen Wellcome L0029073](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Group_photo_of_London_Medical_students_who_went_to_Belsen_Wellcome_L0029073.jpg)
Sir James Learmonth Gowans (7 May 1924 – 1 April 2020) was a British
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
and
immunologist. In 1945, while studying medicine at
King's College Hospital
King's College Hospital is a major teaching hospital and major trauma centre in Denmark Hill, Camberwell in the London Borough of Lambeth, referred to locally and by staff simply as "King's" or abbreviated internally to "KCH". It is managed b ...
, he assisted at the liberated
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concent ...
as a
voluntary medical student.
Gowans was born in
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...
, England. He graduated in medicine in 1947 from King's College Hospital, then in 1948 obtained a degree in
physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
at Oxford, followed by a Ph.D. with
Howard Florey
Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey (24 September 189821 February 1968) was an Australian pharmacologist and pathologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Sir Ernst Chain and Sir Alexander Fleming for his role in ...
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 ...
at Oxford on
lymphocyte
A lymphocyte is a type of white blood cell (leukocyte) in the immune system of most vertebrates. Lymphocytes include natural killer cells (which function in cell-mediated, cytotoxic innate immunity), T cells (for cell-mediated, cytotoxic ad ...
s. He then became a professor of experimental pathology at Oxford. In 1977, he left his research career for ten years to be secretary of the
Medical Research Council. He served as Secretary-General of the
Human Frontier Science Program }
The International Human Frontier Science Program Organization (HFSPO) is a non-profit organization, based in Strasbourg, France, that funds basic research in life sciences. The organization implements the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) and ...
in 1989. He was a colleague and life-long friend of
George Bellamy Mackaness
George Bellamy Mackaness (20 August 1922 – 4 March 2007) was an Australian professor of microbiology, immunology, immunologist, writer and administrator, who researched and described the life history of the macrophage. He showed that by infect ...
.
He made significant discoveries about the role of lymphocytes in the
immune response
An immune response is a reaction which occurs within an organism for the purpose of defending against foreign invaders. These invaders include a wide variety of different microorganisms including viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi which could ...
. In particular, he showed that some lymphocytes were not short-lived, as previously assumed, but moved from the blood into the
lymphatic system
The lymphatic system, or lymphoid system, is an organ system in vertebrates that is part of the immune system, and complementary to the circulatory system. It consists of a large network of lymphatic vessels, lymph nodes, lymphatic or lymphoid o ...
and back. On the initiative of
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 tissue ...
he also undertook experiments on rats that showed that lymphocytes play an important role in
transplant rejection
Transplant rejection occurs when Organ transplant, transplanted tissue is rejected by the recipient's immune system, which destroys the transplanted tissue. Transplant rejection can be lessened by determining the molecular similitude between don ...
.
In 1963, Gowans became a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
. He was appointed a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
in the
1971 New Year Honours for services to medical science and a
Knight Bachelor
The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the ...
in the
1982 New Year Honours.
In 1980, he was awarded the
Wolf Prize in Medicine
The Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded annually by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and Arts. The P ...
. He was a foreign member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
and a SSI Honorary Member (1971), and received several
honorary doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
s. In 1968 he received the
Gairdner Foundation International Award
The Canada Gairdner International Award is given annually by the Gairdner Foundation at a special dinner to five individuals for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a p ...
and in 1990 shared the first Medawar Prize with
Jacques Miller
Jacques Francis Albert Pierre Miller AC FRS FAA (born 2 April 1931) is a French-Australian research scientist. He is known for having discovered the function of the thymus and for the identification, in mammalian species of the two major subset ...
. In 1974, he was awarded the
Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize
The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is an annual award bestowed by the since 1952 for investigations in medicine. It carries a prize money of 120,000 Euro. The prize awarding ceremony is traditionally held on March 14, the birthday of N ...
. He won the
Royal Medal
The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...
in 1976.
Family
In 1956, he married Moira Leatham, with whom he had a son and two daughters.
See also
*
List of London medical students who assisted at Belsen
This is a list of London medical students who assisted at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after its liberation at the end of the Second World War. There were 96 in total. Most of the students were in their penultimate year of medical education a ...
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gowans, James Learmonth
1924 births
2020 deaths
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford
Knights Bachelor
Royal Medal winners
20th-century English medical doctors
Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians
Fellows of the Royal Society
London medical students who assisted at Belsen
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Fellows of King's College London