Ruggero Ceppellini (1917 in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

– 1988) was a leading Italian geneticist. Ceppellini made several important contributions in the field of

immunogenetics Immunogenetics or immungenetics is the branch of Medical Immunology and Medical Genetics that explores the relationship between the immune system and genetics. Autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, are complex genetic traits which result ...

, and understanding of the

human leukocyte antigen The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system or complex is a complex of genes on chromosome 6 in humans which encode cell-surface proteins responsible for the regulation of the immune system. The HLA system is also known as the human version of th ...

(HLA). During service as a sergeant in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Ceppellini was captured by the British and as a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

, was a medical orderly under

Chaim Sheba Chaim Sheba ( he, חיים שיבא; born 1908, died 10 July 1971) was an Israeli physician, notable for being the founder of Sheba Medical Center. Biography Chaim Scheiber (later Sheba) was born in Frasin, near Gura Humorului, Gurahumora, Buk ...

. After the war he finished his medical training and decided to specialize in genetics;

Luca Cavalli-Sforza Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (; 25 January 1922 – 31 August 2018) was an Italian geneticist. He was a population geneticist who taught at the University of Parma, the University of Pavia and then at Stanford University. Works Schooling and po ...

influenced his decision and obtained a place for him at the

University of Milan The University of Milan ( it, Università degli Studi di Milano; la, Universitas Studiorum Mediolanensis), known colloquially as UniMi or Statale, is a public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe ...

''Istituto Sieroterapico Milanese''.W. F. Bodmer
"In memoriam: Ruggiero Ceppellini, 1917 – 1988"
''Immunogenetics'' 29 (1989) 145–47 (pdf) Ceppellini trained at the

Lister Institute The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, informally known as the Lister Institute, was established as a research institute (the British Institute of Preventive Medicine) in 1891, with bacteriologist Marc Armand Ruffer as its first director, us ...

in London, then was visiting investigator at the

University of Columbia Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan ...

Institute for the Study of Human Variation.Paul Lawrence Farber, Hamilton Cravens ''Race and Science: Scientific Challenges to Racism in Modern America'' 2009 Page 109 "Ceppellini was born in Milan and trained at the Lister Institute in London. Shortly after the Dunns left Italy, Ceppellini went at Columbia as a visiting investigator at the Institute for the Study of Human Variation. He remained in New York from ..." After returning to Italy in the late 1950s, in 1962 he became Professor of Medical Genetics at the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe and continues to play an impo ...

, where he founded the Institute of Medical Genetics and began his work on HLA.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ceppellini, Ruggero 1917 births 1988 deaths Italian geneticists