Sir Marc Feldmann, (born 2 December 1944), is an Australian-educated British immunologist. He is a professor at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

and a senior research fellow at

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

Biography

Feldmann was born 2 December 1944 in Lvov to a Jewish family who managed to get to France immediately postwar. He emigrated from France to Australia at age eight. After graduating with an MBBS degree from the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb n ...

in 1967, he earned a Ph.D. in Immunology at the

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research WEHI (), previously known as the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, and as the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, is Australia's oldest medical research institute. Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, who won the Nobel Prize in 1960 for ...

in 1972 with Sir Gustav Nossal.Feldmann, M. (2009) ''Translating molecular insights in autoimmunity into effective therapy.'' Annu. Rev. Immunol. 27: 1-27. He moved to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in the 1970s, working first with

Avrion Mitchison (Nicholas) Avrion Mitchison (born 5 May 1928) is a British zoologist and immunologist. Biography Mitchison was born in 1928, the son of the Labour politician Dick Mitchison (Baron Mitchison of Carradale in the County of Argyll, who died 197 ...

at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's Tumour Immunology Unit; in 1985 he moved to the Charing Cross Sunley Research Centre and the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology (which joined with the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College in 2000; in August 2011 the Institute transferred to the University of Oxford.

Research

In the 1980s he published an hypothesis for the mechanism of induction of autoimmune diseases, highlighting the role of

cytokine Cytokines are a broad and loose category of small proteins (~5–25 kDa) important in cell signaling. Cytokines are peptides and cannot cross the lipid bilayer of cells to enter the cytoplasm. Cytokines have been shown to be involved in a ...

s. This model was validated in experiments with thyroid disease tissue. From 1984 he collaborated with

Ravinder N. Maini Sir Ravinder Nath Maini (born 17 November 1937) is an Indian-born British rheumatologist and academic who is an emeritus professor at Imperial College London. He led the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology. Biography Maini was born in Ludhian ...

at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology to study disease mechanism in rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease affecting 1% of the population. Feldmann's group demonstrated that diseased joints have far more pro-inflammatory cytokines than normal, and identified one of these,

tumour necrosis factor alpha Tumor necrosis factor (TNF, cachexin, or cachectin; formerly known as tumor necrosis factor alpha or TNF-α) is an adipokine and a cytokine. TNF is a member of the TNF superfamily, which consists of various transmembrane proteins with a homologo ...

, (abbreviated TNFα) as the key. Blocking TNFα reduced levels of the other pro-inflammatory cytokines in test-tube models of arthritis, and this provided the rationale for testing TNF blockade in rheumatoid arthritis patients which had failed all existing treatment. The first of a series of successful clinical trials was performed in 1992 at Charing Cross Hospital, using the antibody

infliximab Infliximab, a chimeric monoclonal antibody, sold under the brand name Remicade among others, is a medication used to treat a number of autoimmune diseases. This includes Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spo ...

from

Centocor Janssen Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Beerse, Belgium, and wholly-owned by Johnson & Johnson. It was founded in 1953 by Paul Janssen. In 1961, Janssen Pharmaceuticals was purchased by New Jersey-based American c ...

, a biotech now part of Johnson and Johnson. The success led to other companies joining the race to market. By 1998,

etanercept Etanercept, sold under the brand name Enbrel among others, is a biologic medical product that is used to treat autoimmune diseases by interfering with tumor necrosis factor (TNF), a soluble inflammatory cytokine, by acting as a TNF inhibitor. It h ...

(Enbrel) was approved for treatment in the US, and by 1999, infliximab (Remicade) was also approved; there have been multiple additional approved anti-TNF drugs, and they have become standard therapy cfor stopping the inflammatory and tissue-destructive pathways of

rheumatoid arthritis Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects synovial joint, joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and ...

and other

autoimmune disease An autoimmune disease is a condition arising from an abnormal immune response to a functioning body part. At least 80 types of autoimmune diseases have been identified, with some evidence suggesting that there may be more than 100 types. Nearly ...

s including

Crohn's disease Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that may affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhea (which may be bloody if inflammation is severe), fever, abdominal distension, ...

ulcerative colitis Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a long-term condition that results in inflammation and ulcers of the colon and rectum. The primary symptoms of active disease are abdominal pain and diarrhea mixed with blood ( hematochezia). Weight loss, fever, an ...

ankylosing spondylitis Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a type of arthritis characterized by long-term inflammation of the joints of the spine typically where the spine joins the pelvis. Occasionally areas affected may include other joints such as the shoulders or hi ...

psoriasis Psoriasis is a long-lasting, noncontagious autoimmune disease characterized by raised areas of abnormal skin. These areas are red, pink, or purple, dry, itchy, and scaly. Psoriasis varies in severity from small, localized patches to complet ...

and

psoriatic arthritis Psoriatic arthritis is a long-term inflammatory arthritis that occurs in people affected by the autoimmune disease psoriasis. The classic feature of psoriatic arthritis is swelling of entire fingers and toes with a sausage-like appearance. ...

Prizes and fellowships

In 2000, Feldmann and Maini were awarded the

Crafoord Prize The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. The Prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Fo ...

; in 2003, the

Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award is one of four annual awards presented by the Lasker Foundation. The Lasker-DeBakey award is given to honor outstanding work for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of diseas ...

; in 2002, the

Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh The Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh is awarded by the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine to a person who has made any highly important and valuable addition to Practical Therapeutics in the previous five ye ...

; in 2008, the

Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research The Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research is given annually by Johnson & Johnson to honor the work of an active scientist in academia, industry or a scientific institute in the field of biomedical research. It was established in 2004 and ...

; in 2010, the

Ernst Schering Prize The Ernst Schering Prize is awarded annually by the Ernst Schering Foundation for especially outstanding basic research in the fields of medicine, biology or chemistry anywhere in the world. Established in 1991 by the Ernst Schering Research Foun ...

in Germany; in 2014, the

Canada Gairdner International Award The Canada Gairdner International Award is given annually by the Gairdner Foundation at a special dinner to five individuals for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a ...

. Feldmann was also awarded the John Curtin Medal of the Australian National University in 2007. In 2020 he received the

Tang Prize The Tang Prize () is a set of biannual international awards bestowed in four fields: Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology, and Rule of Law. Nomination and selection are conducted by an independent selection committee, whic ...

in Biopharmaceutical Science. Feldmann is Fellow of the

Royal College of Physicians The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...

and of the

Royal College of Pathologists The Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) is a professional membership organisation. Its main function is the overseeing of postgraduate training, and its Fellowship Examination (FRCPath) is recognised as the standard assessment of fitness to pr ...

. He was elected a Fellow of several national Academies, the

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to ad ...

, the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

of London and is a Corresponding Member of

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal So ...

, and a Foreign Member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

, USA. He was knighted in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours. In 2012 he delivered the

Croonian Lecture The Croonian Medal and Lecture is a prestigious award, a medal, and lecture given at the invitation of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians. Among the papers of William Croone at his death in 1684, was a plan to endow a single ...

to the

on anti-cytokine therapy.

References

External links

kennedy.ox.ac.uk

Publications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feldmann, Marc 1944 births Living people Australian immunologists Australian rheumatologists Melbourne Medical School alumni Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of the Royal Society Australian people of Polish-Jewish descent Australian Jews Polish emigrants to Australia Knights Bachelor WEHI alumni Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Companions of the Order of Australia Recipients of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford