Portrait of Dr Michael G. Hanna, Jr

W hile a PhD candidate, doing my thesis at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Biology Division under Dr. Charles Congdon, my introduction to the immune response was studying graft vs. host (GVH) disease as a consequence of bone marrow transplantation in mice. The sequalae of GVH was impressive, and demonstrated the potential of negative clinical consequences of the immune system. The idea of harnessing this immunological phenomena in cancer therapy was appealing even in the late 1960s. The problem was that at the time T-cells as a component of the immune system were identified but not defined. We moved to soluble antigen stimulation in mice and recognized and described the post antigen stimulation changes in lymphatic tissue germinal centers during the first 48 h after the induction of the humoral immune response. We described the extracellular localization of soluble antigens on the surface of dendritic reticular cells of the stroma, directing a response of B-cells to produce antibody against non-self. The ensuing reaction was the rapid proliferation of B-cells toward antibody secreting plasma cells. These early histological descriptions described the primary immune response in the early intervals after antigen introduction and how the germinal centers lose their architectural structure as a result of rapid proliferation and migration of B-cells. This is the prelude to detection of circulating specific antibody. The same results were also being described in a rat model by Dr. Gustavo Nossal using salmonella flagella antigens and both studies were published simultaneously in 1964. In 1965, these two studies were introduced as lectures one and two at the opening of the first major immunology conference in London. In this conference at the Chester Beatty Hospital, international teams of researchers experienced the birth and potential of the total immune system. For many years thereafter, new results in immunology correlating morphology and function were the popular basis in the follow-on Germinal Center Conferences. Also, these histological changes in the first 48 h after an antigenic challenge, based on studies we performed in germ free mice, was one of the critical biologic tests of potential biological contaminants in the core moon dust and moon rock samples brought back by the Apollo 11 and 12 endeavor. I was privileged to be involved with these tests at the lunar receiving laboratory of NASA. and had the opportunity to attempt to harness the immune system to treat synge-neic tumors in Strain 2, guinea pigs …