title: Peter Brian Medawar and the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance.
abstract: The immunological tolerance was described for the first time with the seminal observations made in 1945 by R.D. Owen, demonstrating that cattle dizygotic twins display red cell chimerism in adult life. F.M. Burnet and F. Fenner highlighted the Owen's discovery in their monograph "The production of Antibodies" published in 1949. In 1953, P. Medawar and his co-workers showed that tolerance can be experimentally induced in fetal mice and in chick embryos. In 1960, Medawar in recognition of the significance of his 1953 and 1956 papers was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Burnet for their discovery of acquired immunologic tolerance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Neurosciences and Sensory Organs University of Bari Medical School Policlinico - Piazza G. Cesare, 11, 70124 Bari, National Cancer Institute "Giovanni Paolo II", Bari, Italy. Electronic address: domenico.ribatti@uniba.it.
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ribatti
mesh_terms: D000486:Allergy and Immunology / Q000266:history; D006666:History of Medicine; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007108:Immune Tolerance; D009613:Nobel Prize; D010827:Physiology / Q000266:history
keywords: History of medicine; Innunology; Not-self; Self; Tolerance