Susumu Tonegawa

Susumu Tonegawa is a Japanese molecular biologist who discovered that antibody diversity arises through rearrangement of immunoglobulin genes. He received the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

V(D)J recombination: A process that rearranges variable, diversity, and joining gene segments to generate antigen-receptor diversity. Tonegawa established that this DNA rearrangement generates antibody diversity.
Niels Jerne: A Danish immunologist whose theories of antibody formation and immune selection influenced modern immunology. Jerne shared the 1984 Nobel Prize that helped frame the problem Tonegawa later solved.
Optogenetics: A method for controlling genetically targeted cells with light-sensitive proteins. Tonegawa’s neuroscience research used optogenetic methods to manipulate memory-related neuronal ensembles.
Clonal selection theory: An account of adaptive immunity in which antigens select lymphocytes bearing matching receptors for expansion. Tonegawa’s discovery supplied a genetic mechanism for generating the receptor diversity this theory requires.
Immunoglobulin gene: A gene encoding an antibody or one of its constituent chains. Its rearranged segments provided the genetic evidence behind Tonegawa’s discovery.
César Milstein: An Argentine-British immunologist who developed hybridoma methods for producing monoclonal antibodies. Milstein’s work on antibody-producing cells formed part of the Nobel Prize context surrounding Tonegawa.
Engram: A physical change in the nervous system that encodes a memory. His laboratory investigated how memory-related cell ensembles store and retrieve information.
Adaptive immunity: A vertebrate immune response that develops antigen-specific recognition and immunological memory. Antibody gene rearrangement explains how adaptive immunity can recognize many distinct antigens.
Somatic hypermutation: A process in activated B cells that introduces mutations into antibody variable-region genes. It adds further antibody variation beyond the gene rearrangement Tonegawa identified.
Georges Köhler: A German biologist who co-developed hybridoma technology for producing monoclonal antibodies. Köhler shared the 1984 Nobel Prize with Milstein for a complementary advance in antibody research.

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