George Snell's First Foray Into the Unexplored Territory of the Major Histocompatibility Complex

Abstract

THE expression “x number years ago” is a moving target. Right now it is 50 years ago, but next year it will be more than 50 and a year later more again. Historians avoid this relativity by agreeing on a date that serves as a fixed point in the ceaseless flow of time. Year 0 divides the recent past into B.C. and A.D., whereas the year 1950 sets the present apart from the time “before the present,” B.P. In both instances, “before” trails off into the mists of antiquity. Curiously, 1950 can also be taken as a dividing point in the history of the major histocompatibility complex (Mhc), separating the “before” from the “present” times, for it was in the first year of the present era that George D. Snell published two papers that marked the beginning of a modern inquiry into the nature of the Mhc. These works also mark the beginning of an interminable interest in the Mhc shared by an ever-growing coterie of students. To an immunogeneticist, 1951 is the annus mirabilis, a remarkable year in which the first hints of what later would be recognized as two essential properties of the Mhc—its polymorphism and its genetic complexity—were revealed. But to grasp the true significance of Snell's contribution, we must place it into its proper historical context.

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