Anthony Clifford Allison, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetAnthony Clifford Allison
Medical scientist and geneticist
Date of Birth: 21-Aug-1925
Place of Birth: East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Date of Death: 20-Feb-2014
Profession: geneticist
Nationality: South Africa
Zodiac Sign: Leo 
About Anthony Clifford Allison
- Anthony Clifford Allison (21 August 1925 – 20 February 2014) was a South African geneticist and medical scientist who made pioneering studies on the genetic resistance to malaria.
- Clark completed his primary schooling in Kenya, completed his higher education in South Africa, and obtained a BSc in Medical Science from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1947.
- He earned his PhD from the University of Oxford in 1950.
- After working at the Radcliffe Infirmary for two years, he worked as post-doctoral student to Linus Pauling in 1954.
- After teaching medicine for three years at Oxford, he worked at the Medical Research Council in London.
- In 1978 he simultaneously worked at the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD) as its Director, and at the World Health Organization's (WHO) Immunology Laboratory, both in Nairobi.
- He later became the Vice President for Research at Syntex Corporation (1981-1994). While a graduate student at Oxford, Allison joined a vocational Oxford University Expedition to Mount Kenya in 1949.
- He first noticed from blood samples he collected that there was an unusually high occurrence of sickle-cell trait in its less harmful (heterozygous) condition.
- He conceived the idea that it could be an advantageous adaptation to people constantly exposed to malaria.
- After he completed his doctoral research at Oxford in 1953, he investigated further.
- In 1954 he discovered, confirming his preconception, that people with sickle-cell trait are resistant to the deadly falciparum malaria. In the 1970s, Allison had worked out the enzyme, inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase, as a key molecule of the immune response in autoimmune diseases and in organ transplantation.
- Based on this, he tested the otherwise abandoned antibiotic, mycophenolate mofetil, as an inhibitor of the enzyme.
- After experimental success, with his wife, Elsie M.
- Eugui, he developed a safer derivative which was eventually approved as an immunosuppressive drug called CellCept.
- He contributed more that 400 technical papers and edited 12 books.
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