Niels K. Jerne life and biography

Niels Kaj Jerne, (December 23, 1911 – October 7, 1994) was a Danish immunologist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Georges J. F. Köhler and César Milstein "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies".

Jerne was 40 years old when he earned his doctorate, and 72 when he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1984. He shared the honor with Georges J.F. Köhler and César Milstein, in recognition of all three scientists' research into how the body protects itself against disease.

Jerne proposed three overlapping theories to explain how antibodies are produced, formed, and regulated. For years his ideas were met with great skepticism, but his work is now widely accepted as the basis of modern immunological knowledge. Something of an eccentric character, Jerne cited linguist Noam Chomsky in his Nobel acceptance speech, using Chomsky's theory of generative grammar to explain the human immune system.

Honorary titles and memberships:
Honorary doctorates:
-University of Chicago (1972)
-Columbia University (1978)
-University of Copenhagen (1979)
-University of Basel (1981)
-Erasmus University Rotterdam (1983)

Memberships of Scientific societies:
-Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1967)
-Member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (1969)
-Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (1975)
-Fellow of the Royal Society (1980)
-Member of the Académie des Sciences (1981)

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