Jean-Charles Cerottini
Jean-Charles Cerottini
Dr. Jean-Charles Cerottini, LICR’s longest-serving Branch Director, has decided to step down and take up a new challenge in local government in Switzerland. The founding Director, Dr. Cerottini was recruited to LICR in 1975, making him one of our longest-serving staff members.
A native of Switzerland, Dr. Cerottini obtained his M.D. from the University of Lausanne’s Medical School in 1966, while also completing a Research Fellowship at the Institute of Biochemistry at the University. He went on to be a Research Fellow and then an Associate at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation (California, USA). In 1969, Dr. Cerottini returned to the Immunology Department of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer (ISREC), and there remained until 1975 when he was appointed Director of the LICR Lausanne Branch.
A small selection of Dr. Cerottini’s research accomplishments have been highlighted by Dr. Douglas T. Fearon (LICR Scientific Advisory Committee, and University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, see below). Dr. Cerottini’s publications number just over 380 papers and he has also received several awards, namely the Prix Marcel Benoist (1977), the Prix du Cancer from the Swiss League Against Cancer (1973) and also Laureate of the University of Lausanne (1966). Dr. Cerottini has been actively involved in international science - above and beyond his involvement in LICR activities - through his contributions to 40+ organizations that span six countries and include several international and pan-European Boards and Task-forces, including the World Health Organization, the Pasteur Institute (France), the International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology (Belgium), the Cancer Research Institute (USA) the Netherlands Cancer Foundation (Netherlands) and the Canadian Network for Vaccines (Canada). He has also been Editor, Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member of ten scientific journals, including Annals of Oncology, Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B, Thymus, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Journal of Immunology and the European Journal of Immunology.
Perhaps an even more important contribution to the field of immunology has been Dr. Cerottini’s mentoring and guidance of hundreds of young scientists in Switzerland and elsewhere. It was Dr. Cerottini that taught Dr. Rolf Zinkernagal (Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine 1996, with Dr. Peter C. Doherty) the 51Cr release assay that Dr. Zinkernagal adapted to measure cytolytic T cell responses in mice, allowing him to make the seminal discoveries recognized by the Nobel Committee. Dr. Cerottini is also singled out in Dr. Zinkernagal’s Nobel Prize Autobiography, as helping him get a post-doctoral position (in the USA), following the one during which he conducted his award-winning work.
Finally, Dr. Cerottini has been almost a one-man integrating force
in Lausanne, having held positions at most of the research institutions
in Lausanne - Member at ISREC, Professor at the University of Lausanne
School of Medicine, Associate Dean for Research at the University
of Lausanne’s School of Medicine, Affiliate Member of the Lausanne
University Hospital (CHUV) and Director of LICR - sometimes concurrently.
Dr. Cerottini brought these abilities to bear to establish one
of the first LICR clinical trial sites that brought together basic
and clinical research, an accomplishment that has long been lauded by LICR’s
administration.
When he leaves LICR on August 31, Dr. Cerottini will become Mayor
of Saint-Sulpice, a small town located on the shores of Lake Geneva
in close vicinity to Lausanne. On behalf of the LICR family, we
wish him all the very best in this new capacity and thank him for
his 30+ years of distinguished service to the Institute.
Jean-Charles Cerottini is retiring after 31 years as Director of the Lausanne Branch of the LICR. His appointment in 1975 as the founding Director of this Branch was of great strategic importance for the development of the tumor immunology program of the LICR. His unique contributions reflect an unusual and synergistic combination of talents that have enabled him to be a fundamental immunologist, physician, and academic leader.
After completing his medical education at the University of Lausanne in 1962, Professor Cerottini studied with Henri Isliker at the Institute of Biochemistry, completing his doctoral thesis in 1966 on anti-tumor agents in plasma proteins, indicating an interest from the very beginning in tumor immunology. He then continued his training in immunology when he joined the Department of Experimental Pathology, Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation before returning to the Department of Immunology at ISREC as a Senior Scientist. It was at this juncture that he began a lifelong series of important contributions to our understanding of the cytotoxic T lymphocyte. The initiating event was the first description in 1968 with Theodore Brunner of the standard assay of the cytotoxic function of these cells, which was followed two years later by two landmark Nature papers in 1970 identifying thymus-derived lymphocytes as the cellular mediator of alloantigen-specific cytotoxicity.
With his appointment in 1975 as Director of the Lausanne Branch, he began to combine his interests in basic immunology with the problem of tumor immunity. In the 1980’s, his basic research showed that a single T cell receptor recognizes both antigen and MHC, and that allo-recognition by the CTL may involve self-MHC protein bearing alloantigen-derived peptide, and his research with Brunner and MacDonald into the immune response to tumors demonstrated enrichment in tumor tissue of tumor-specific CTLs, a justification for the later work by others on the use of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for adoptive immunotherapy. In the 1990’s his investigations with a series of important collaborators in the Branch moved increasingly to the highly challenging problem analysing spontaneous and induced human anti-tumor immune responses. Each of these steps has been made possible not only by his scientific knowledge but also by his leadership in the wider academic community of Lausanne, including the University Hospital, the University, and the Swiss Institute for Experimental Research (ISREC). His leadership has enhanced the goals of LICR by facilitating the integration of the Branch into intellectual environment of Lausanne.
It is interesting to reflect on the breadth of these many achievements in light of the contemporary recognition of the rarity of the so-called “translational” investigator. Individuals doing translational research of the standard exemplified by Professor Cerottini are rare because they must have so many talents
Dr. Douglas T. Fearon
LICR Scientific Advisory Committee
Wellcome Trust Immunology Unit
University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine
Cambridge, UK