Siamon Gordon: a Half-Century Fascination with Macrophages
PEOPLE & IDEAS Siamon Gordon: A half-century fascination with macrophages Stephanie Houston Siamon Gordon is a Glaxo Wellcome Professor Emeritus of Cellular Pathology at the University of Oxford and a fellow of the Royal Society. Throughout his career, Siamon has focused on macrophages, and his work led to the identification of the pan- macrophage marker F4/80 and the description of a role for Dectin-1 in the innate recognition of β-glucans. I caught up with Siamon to discuss his career path and his thoughts on macrophages. Downloaded from http://rupress.org/jem/article-pdf/217/7/e20191069/1138520/jem_20191069.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Background plasma membrane receptors and respon- My parents immigrated to South Africa siveness to change in their environment, from Lithuania in 1930. Due to the Depres- they support specific organ functions and sion, my father, trained as a rabbi, had to promote homeostasis beyond immunity and move to the small village of Darling, 50 host defense. miles from Cape Town, to serve a scattered Jewish community on the West Coast. I Where and with whom have you studied spoke Afrikaans and went to a local school (undergraduate, graduate, postdoc)? until the age of 15 before moving to an In 1965, I was fortunate to meet my doctoral English language school in Cape Town for supervisor, Zanvil (Zan) Cohn, founder of the final 2 yr of high school. I studied med- cellular immunology at the Rockefeller icine at the University of Cape Town, grad- University, mentor of a generation of mac- uating in 1961, completed my residency at rophage investigators, and editor of the Groote Schuur Hospital, and left for further Journal of Experimental Medicine.Heen- research experience abroad in 1964.
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