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Ellen Heber-Katz
Summary
Ellen Heber-Katz is an American immunologist and regeneration biologist who is a professor at Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR). She discovered that the Murphy Roths Large (MRL) mouse strain can regenerate wounds without scarring, and can fully restore damaged tissues. Her work on regeneration has been extended into National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded studies of novel aspects of breast cancer causation. Her research interests include immunology, regenerative medicine and cancer.
Heber-Katz received her B.A. in microbiology and immunology in 1969 and her M.S. in immunology in 1972 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying with Robert E. Click. Her M.S. thesis focused on the role of reducing agents as critical factors in cellular immune responses. In 1976, she earned her Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania, studying with D.B. Wilson.
In her thesis work, she showed that single T-cell subsets could respond to both histocompatibility antigens and environmental antigens, establishing the unity of these two branches of the immune response. She pursued postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the Laboratory of Immunology, under the immunologists E. Shevach, W.E. Paul and R. Schwartz, where she established the first functional evidence for the formation of a molecular complex between a T cell antigen and the MHC class Ia molecule, anticipating the crystal structure later determined for this fundamental molecular complex in T cell biology.
At NIAID, Heber-Katz also conducted experiments that illuminated the molecular details involved in controlling interactions between T-cells and macrophages. The experiment termed the "A/5R experiment" confirmed the Determinant Selection Hypothesis, which concerned the spatial relationships between the histocompatibility I-A and I-E molecules on the surface of antigen-presenting cells, the bound antigen and the recognition structure of the T-cell receptor, contributing to the fundamental understanding of how ‘foreign’ antigens activate the adaptive immune system in mammals.
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