Legends of Allergy: Jan E. de Vries

Abstract

Jan Egbert de Vries (Figure 1) is a cosmopolitan immunologist and an enthralling mentor with a large track record of innovative achievements in the fields of allergy and immunology. Jan was born in Strijen (NL), a small town located in the Hollands Diep estuary in the South of The Netherlands. He spent his youth in the NL combining his studies with his passion for sports; he became Dutch champion in decathlon. Shortly after his PhD, and like his fellow countryman Erasmus of Rotterdam, he started a long journey that brought him to France, California, Austria and Switzerland, although never settling in any of the cities he worked. Like Erasmus, he has been since an insatiable scholar ("Non est ulla studiorum satietas ") and an inspiring mentor for a large number of students and collaborators. Jan studied at the University of Utrecht (NL) and graduated from the University of Amsterdam (NL) with a PhD in Immunology in 1976. After his graduation, he spent two years in the lab of John Mendelsohn at the University of California, San Diego (US), as a recipient of an Eleanor Roosevelt fellowship. Thereafter, he returned to Amsterdam, where he became the Head of the Department of Immunology at the National Cancer Research Institute. His groundbreaking observations on the cytotoxic activity of T lymphocytes isolated from melanoma patients (1) motivated the search for tumor-specific antigens, which could be used for the development of cancer vaccines.