Emil R. Unanue, M.D., has been named the Paul and Ellen Lacy Professor of Pathology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The appointment was announced by Skip Virgin, M.D., Ph.D., the Edward Mallinckrodt Professor and head of Pathology and Immunology at the School of Medicine.
Unanue recently stepped down after serving as head of the department for 21 years. The chair is named for Unanue’s predecessor as department head, Paul Lacy, M.D., Ph.D., and his wife, Ellen.
“I can think of no one more appropriate to be honored with the Lacy professorship,” Virgin says. “Dr. Unanue is one of the most outstanding immunologists and infectious disease researchers in the world. He has made fundamentally important contributions to our understanding of how the immune system recognizes and responds to pathogens and how these responses can sometimes go awry and target the self in autoimmune conditions.”
Lacy, a specialist in diabetes, was head of pathology and immunology from 1961-1984. He pioneered the development of transplantation of islets of Langerhans, insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, as a treatment for diabetes. The treatment is a research option for some diabetes patients today; scientists hope to one day refine it into a permanent cure.
“I am very honored to receive the Lacy chair because Paul was not only a close personal friend but also someone that I admired greatly,” Unanue says. “He had a very significant influence in making the department a major center for biomedical research prior to my arrival here.”
Unanue came to Washington University in 1985 to become head of pathology and immunology at the School of Medicine and pathologist-in-chief of Barnes-Jewish Hospital. During his tenure, the immunology program at Washington University has become one of the most innovative and productive centers in the world for immunological research.
Unanue is internationally recognized as a leader in understanding how the immune system identifies foreign material, known to scientists as antigen, and how immune system T cells respond to it. The cells are important components of the body’s response to infectious diseases; when misdirected against the body’s own tissues, they also can make major contributions to autoimmune conditions including diabetes and arthritis.
In the early 1980s, Unanue’s research group uncovered a critical component of how T cells recognize invaders. Scientists had previously speculated that the cells were recognizing the shapes of intact pathogens, but Unanue showed that they were identifying parts of pathogens during their interactions with another group of immune cells, the antigen-presenting cells. These cells pick up antigens and degrade them to fragments or peptides. Unanue and Paul Allen, Ph.D., the Robert L. Kroc Professor of Pathology and Immunology, discovered that antigen-presenting cells bind these peptides to a special group of molecules known as the major histocompatibility complex.
Through his continuing investigations of how immune recognition and attacks take place, Unanue has helped scientists gain important insights that may one day be harnessed to improve the body’s defenses against diseases and to disarm misdirected immune attacks that could lead to autoimmune conditions such as diabetes and arthritis.
Among many other awards and honors, Unanue is a past recipient of the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the Gairdner Foundation International Award and the Robert Koch Gold Medal from Germany. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He previously served as chair of the National Academy of Sciences Section of Microbiology and Immunology.
Washington University School of Medicine’s full-time and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.