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Né le 19 octobre 1916, à Toulouse, le professeur Jean Dausset a fait ses études au lycée Michelet, à Paris, et à la faculté de médecine de Paris. Interne des hôpitaux de Paris en 1941, il devient maître de conférences d'hématologie en 1959, puis professeur d'immuno-hématologie à la faculté de médecine Lariboisière Saint Louis, en 1968, avant d'être nommé, en 1978, professeur au Collège de France. Il fut aussi, de 1962 à 1968, directeur adjoint de l'Institut de recherches sur les leucémies et les maladies du sang. Ses recherches ont essentiellement porté sur l'immuno-hématologie biologique et clinique, et l'ont mené à la découverte des groupes tissulaires, et plus largement du système dit "H.L.A." qui les régit.

découverte déterminante dans la réussite des greffes d'organe, est décédé samedi en Espagne. L'immunologiste Jean Dausset, 92 ans, Prix Nobel de Médecine en 1980 pour une découverte déterminante dans la réussite des greffes d'organe, est décédé samedi à Palma de Majorque (Espagne) où il vivait depuis deux ans, a déclaré le président de la Haute autorité de santé, Laurent Degos. Le Pr Dausset a découvert en 1958 ce qui deviendra le système des groupes tissulaires HLA (Human Leucocyte Antigen), beaucoup plus complexe que celui des groupes sanguins, qui permet de vérifier la compatibilité entre donneur et receveur lors d'une transplantation d'organe ou d'une greffe de moelle osseuse. «J'ai compris et, peu à peu, pu prouver que les globules blancs, les plaquettes et d'une façon générale, les cellules de tous les tissus d'un organisme ont une identité chimique qui les distingue de celles des autres organismes de la même espèce. Au point d'être incompatibles entre eux», expliquait-il dans une interview en 1980. La grande variabilité d'un individu à l'autre du système HLA et de la multitude de combinaisons qu'il permet, a démontré, selon le Pr Dausset, que chaque homme est unique.

El médico francés Jean Dausset (1916-2009), Nobel de Medicina en 1980 por sus descubrimientos sobre los transplantes, ha fallecido hoy a causa de una neumonía a los 92 años de edad en Palma de Mallorca, donde residía desde hace dos años. Dausset, nacido en Toulouse y se especializó en el campo médico de la inmunología. Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial sirvió en la unidad de transfusión sanguínea del ejército francés, interesándose por las reacciones causadas por las transfusiones. En 1958 descubrió el sistema que permitió contrastar la compatibilidad sanguínea entre el donante y el receptor en los transplantes de órganos. Era miembro de las Academias francesas de Medicina y la de Ciencia y había sido condecorado con la Legión de Honor y la Orden Nacional del Mérito. El presidente francés, Nicolas Sarkozy, ha rendido homenaje hoy "al gran científico que representó la excelencia de la medicina y de la investigación médica francesas".

His mother originated from Lorraine, his father from the Pyrénées, two French provinces very distant from one another and with vast cultural differences. His parents met in Paris. During the First World War, his father, a doctor and captain in the army, sent Jean Dausset's mother and the first three children to Toulouse. It was there that Jean Dausset was born, on 19th October 1916, and this region has held a strong attachment for him ever since. After the war, his father worked as a physiotherapist and radiologist, dividing his time between Paris and the spa towns. Jean Dausset spent his early childhood in Biarritz, until the age of secondary school. Then, when he was 11 years old, his family came to settle permanently in Paris. He pursued his secondary studies at the Lycée Michelet and obtained his baccalaureate in mathematics. His choice of career was almost dictated by that of his father, Henri Dausset, who pioneered Rheumatology in France. His medical studies progressed without incident until the advent of the Second World War, when they were interrupted. He was mobilized in 1939 and returned from the French Campaign in 1940 to a Paris occupied by the Germany Army. He began to devote his time ardently to the preparation of a competitive examination for the title of Intern of the Paris Hospitals. Upon receiving this title, he immediately left to join the fighting forces in North Africa. During the Tunisian Campaign, he performed blood transfusions in the army. This was his first introduction to immunohaematology. While training in Algiers, he performed his first laboratory experiments and carried out his first scientific study on blood platelets. On his return in 1944, to a liberated Paris, he was given the responsibility for collection of blood samples in the Paris area, working from the Regional Blood Transfusion Centre at Hôpital Saint-Antoine. As soon as the war was over, he undertook his first real research study, in collaboration with Professor Marcel Bessis. Professor Bessis had just developed exchange-transfusion in new-born babies and adults. It is impossible to say how much time he spent treating, with this method, women who had become anuric following abortion manoeuvres resulting in septicaemia due to Clostridium perfringens - this was his first contact with kidney failure! His clinical years oriented towards haematology and pediatrics, with a constant attraction to the laboratory. In 1948, he was sent, as a French trainee, to the Children's Hospital in Boston (Professors L. K Diamond and Sydney Farber) where he worked in one of the Harvard Medical School laboratories. On his return to France, he took up work again at the regional Blood Transfusion Centre, where he immediately became interested in the new immuno-haematology techniques for red blood cells. He decided to transpose these techniques to white blood cells and platelets. The principal observation of leuco-agglutination and thrombo-agglutination was made in 1952. Since that time, he has retained a constant interest in the immunogenetics of blood cells. In 1958, while Head of the Immuno-haematology Laboratory at the National Blood Transfusion Centre, he described the first leucocyte antigen, MAC, which has become known as HLA-A2. Preoccupied with the state of medical research in France, he undertook with Professor Robert Debré, to institute radical reforms in the hospital and university structures. This work as Advisor to the Cabinet of the National Ministry of Education, spanned three consecutive years and culminated in the introduction of a law which established full-time employment in French hospitals, introducing to the hospitals professors of basic sciences, who were given hospital responsibilities. This reform permitted a soar in French biology and brought a new lease of life to French medical research. Despite the administrative struggles which ensued during this period, he never abandoned his laboratory work. In 1958, he was named Assistant Professor of Haematology at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, then Professor of Haematology in 1963 and was appointed Head of the Immunology Department at Hôpital Saint-Louis. Again, he devoted his time entirely to research and, in 1965, described the first tissue group system (Hu-1, later named HLA). Thanks to the admirable volunteer blood donors, skin donors and skin recipients, grafted under the care of Professor F. T. Rapaport, correlations were established between graft survival and tissue incompatibility. He participated in the creation of the Research Institute in Blood Diseases, directed by Professor Jean Bernard, and was Assistant Director there until 1968. One of the departments under his direction was the Research Unit on Immunogenetics of Human Transplantation, an INSERM (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) unit of which he has been director since 1968. In 1977, the Collège de France called him to the Chair of Experimental Medicine, a position held by Claude Bernard from 1958 to 1978, but his research laboratory remained at Hôpital Saint-Louis. In 1963, he married Rose Mayoral from Madrid who gave him two children, Henri and Irène. In addition to his scientific interests, he has only two passions in life: his family and modern plastic art.

L'immunologiste Jean Dausset, 92 ans, Prix Nobel de Médecine en 1980 pour une découverte déterminante dans la réussite des greffes d'organe, est décédé samedi 6 juin à Palma de Majorque, en Espagne, où il vivait depuis deux ans. Le Pr Dausset a découvert en 1958 ce qui deviendra le système des groupes tissulaires HLA (Human Leucocyte Antigen), beaucoup plus complexe que celui des groupes sanguins, qui permet de vérifier la compatibilité entre donneur et receveur lors d'une transplantation d'organe ou d'une greffe de moëlle osseuse. "J'ai compris et, peu à peu, pu prouver que les globules blancs, les plaquettes et d'une façon générale, les cellules de tous les tissus d'un organisme ont une identité chimique qui les distingue de celles des autres organismes de la même espèce. Au point d'être incompatibles entre eux", expliquait-il dans une interview en 1980. La grande variabilité d'un individu à l'autre du système HLA et de la multitude de combinaisons qu'il permet, a démontré, selon le Pr Dausset, que chaque homme est unique. Après avoir découvert en 1958 un premier de ces "marqueurs" de l'identité biologique individuelle, il poursuivra ses travaux, constatant que le système HLA intervient aussi dans la réponse immunitaire, c'est-à-dire la capacité qu'a l'organisme de se défendre contre les virus ou le cancer.