Peter Alfred Gorer FRS (14 April 1907 (London)–1961) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 immunologist, pathologist and geneticist who pioneered the field of transplant immunology

Organ transplant

Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...

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Peter Gorer was born in London to Edgar (drowned in the Lusitania

Lusitania

Lusitania or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain . It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people...

 sinking) and Rachel née Cohen Gorer. He died of lung cancer

Lung cancer

Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

 in 1961.

Education and work institutions

He was educated at Charterhouse

Charterhouse School

Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...

. He graduated from Guy's Hospital, London

Guy's Hospital

Guy's Hospital is a large NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in south east London, England. It is administratively a part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. It is a large teaching hospital and is home to the King's College London School of Medicine...

 in 1929 and then studied genetics under J.B.S. Haldane at University College, London. From 1933 to 1940 Gorer worked at the Lister Institute before returning to Guy's Hospital to work as a pathologist.

Research

Gorer is credited with the co-discovery of histocompatibility antigens and the elucidation of their genetic regulation. Together with George Snell, he helped discover the murine histocompatibility 2 locus, or H-2, which is analogous to the human leukocyte antigen

Human leukocyte antigen

The human leukocyte antigen system is the name of the major histocompatibility complex in humans. The super locus contains a large number of genes related to immune system function in humans. This group of genes resides on chromosome 6, and encodes cell-surface antigen-presenting proteins and...

. Gorer also identified antigen II and determined its role in transplant tissue rejection

Transplant rejection

Transplant rejection occurs when transplanted tissue is rejected by the recipient's immune system, which destroys the transplanted tissue. Transplant rejection can be lessened by determining the molecular similitude between donor and recipient and by use of immunosuppressant drugs after...

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Awards

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960.

• 1975 Cancer Research Institute William B. Coley Award
  William B. Coley Award
  The William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology is presented annually by the Cancer Research Institute, Inc., to scientists who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of basic and tumor immunology and whose work has deepened our understanding of the...