Nobel Prize awarded to immunogeneticist George Snell in 1980 to be auctioned
Snell won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen).
LOS ANGELES, CA
.- The 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded to George D. Snell for science will be auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auctions on July 29, 2021.
Snell won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen), the genetic foundation of a body s immunological response to tissue and organ transplants, determining whether it accepts an organ or rejects it. His research conducted at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine became the birth of transplantation immunology utilizing the histocompatibility system. The more antigens on the leukocytes they share, the more likely a tissue transplant is to survive. Prior to Snell s research, organ transplantation was entirely dependent on chance as to whether a genetic match would allow an organ to be accepted by its recipient; afterwards, the only imp