George D. Snell Biography

George David Snell was an American geneticist who was the joint recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was an expert in the areas of mouse genetics and transplant immunology and was referred to as ‘father of immunogenetics by many. Interested in mathematics and science from a young age, he pursued his higher studies in science and subsequently earned his doctorate degree in genetics from the Harvard University. Following this, he pursued teaching profession for a few years and was associated with institutions like Brown University and Washington State University in St. Louis. After spending a few years as post doctoral fellow at the University of Texas, he joined the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor in 1935 and continued to work there until his retirement in 1973. He, along with immunologists, Baruj Benacerraf and Jean Dausset, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1980 for their independent ‘discoveries concerning genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions’. He was the author of several books and founded the scientific journal ‘Immunogenetics’.