Rupert Everett Billingham FRS (15 October 1921 – 16 November 2002) was a British biologist who did significant research in the fields of reproductive immunology and

organ transplantation Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ (anatomy), organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient, to replace a damaged or missing organ. The donor and recipient may be at the same location, or organ ...

. "He made numerous fundamental contributions to our modern knowledge of the mechanisms of graft rejection and how to prevent it, and he analysed some of the mechanisms responsible for the survival of the mammalian foetus in an immunologically hostile environment". Billingham was born in

Warminster Warminster () is an ancient market town with a nearby garrison, and civil parish in south west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of about 17,000 in 2011. The 11th-century Minster Church of S ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, the son of a dairy farmer. He completed his BSc in zoology at

Oriel College, Oxford Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, wh ...

. His studies were interrupted by

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 ...

, he completed war time service in the Royal Navy serving on an anti-submarine escort. He returned to Oxford in 1946 and became

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 ...

's research student. During his PhD he worked on skin grafts in guinea pigs, demonstrating that when black skin was grafted onto white skin, the white skin became black. They proposed that the change was due to the dissemination of a self replicating agent from normal melanocytes into non-melanin-producing cells; but this hypothesis was wrong and they later showed that pigment spread was due to cell migration. In 1947 Medawar accepted the chair of zoology at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

. He continued to work on transplantation with Medawar, and in 1951 they both accepted positions at the

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. Together they demonstrated

immune tolerance Immune tolerance, or immunological tolerance, or immunotolerance, is a state of unresponsiveness of the immune system to substances or tissue that would otherwise have the capacity to elicit an immune response in a given organism. It is induced by ...

as proposed by

Frank Macfarlane Burnet Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, (3 September 1899 – 31 August 1985), usually known as Macfarlane or Mac Burnet, was an Australian virologist known for his contributions to immunology. He won a Nobel Prize in 1960 for predicting acquired immune ...

. Burnet and Medawar received the Nobel Prize for this work in 1960. They also worked on

graft-versus-host disease Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a syndrome, characterized by inflammation in different organs. GvHD is commonly associated with bone marrow transplants and stem cell transplants. White blood cells of the donor's immune system which remain wit ...

. In 1951 Billingham married and had 3 children with his wife Jean Billingham. Billingham emigrated to the United States in 1957, and took a position at the

Wistar Institute The Wistar Institute () is an independent, nonprofit research institution in biomedical science, with expertise in oncology, immunology, infectious disease and vaccine research. Located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, Wistar was ...

. In 1965 he became chair of the Department of Human Genetics at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. The same year, he was elected a Fellow 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, and ...

. He moved to the

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern or UTSW) is a public academic health science center in Dallas, Texas. With approximately 18,800 employees, more than 2,900 full-time faculty, and nearly 4 million outpatient vi ...

in 1971. He died in Boston aged 81, following a long illness with

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Billingham, Rupert E 1921 births 2002 deaths Royal Navy sailors Military personnel from Wiltshire Academics of the University of Birmingham Academics of University College London Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford British expatriates in the United States British immunologists Neurological disease deaths in Massachusetts Deaths from Parkinson's disease Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society People from Warminster Royal Navy personnel of World War II University of Pennsylvania faculty University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center faculty