Book Review: The History of the Basel Institute for Immunology

Prof. Ivan Lefkovits writes from the unique perspective of being present for the entire 32 years that the Basel Institute for Immunology (BII) was the global focus of immunological research and discovery. The book is the story of the place and people leading to the discovery of the genetic mechanisms of immunoglobulin diversity and the elucidation of the immunological network, leading quickly to three Nobel Prizes. This outcome is the result of the careful curation and caretaking by Prof. Niels Jerne of the Members of the Institute: his management paradigm was unique, led directly to success, and is an important case study in effective and efficient scientific research management. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that “A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire ... An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man...”1: Niels Jerne gave birth to the Network Theory and the BII, and for ages after we have Immunology. The BII was established by Hoffmann-La Roche executives Adolf Jann and Alfred Pletscher, helped by Johann-Rudolf Frey, in 1968 to create new scientific knowledge of the then poorly understood immune system, for the future benefit of humanity and for the pharmaceutical industry by investigating a key physiological system that combats disease, and eventually identifying new pharmaceutical targets and therapeutics. The founders understood it was a philanthropic long-term economic development project supported exclusively by Roche, which would foster the whole Swiss pharmaceutical industry and provide meaningful local employment. Key to their prescient thinking was that while Roche provided all funding, the Institute was independent and not required to directly benefit the company. This freedom, so rare today, allowed the great creativity which followed. Prof. Lefkovits has carefully and passionately recounted the remarkable story of BII, supporting it with photos and background data embedded in QR codes. Niels Jerne was selected to lead BII and given the freedom to design it de novo both as a building and as a scientific community, without corporate constraints and hierarchies. Niels had many special attributes: He gathered detailed accurate experimental data, confirmed its veracity, theorized, and repeated the cycle. He understood how scientists worked. Both of these became the soul of BII. His early measurements of diphtheria antisera told him that antisera must contain multiple antibodies each with different binding strengths, contrary to contemporary ideas. He persisted, wanted to understand antibody differences, and proposed a comprehensive natural-selection theory for antibody diversity. This was the conceptual basis for BII. His building design encouraged communication, a circular hallway intersected the coffee room, labs connected vertically by circular staircases made a 3D matrix where we met and