Susumu Tonegawa

Tonegawa, Susumu (1939– ), Japanese biologist. An expert in immunology, he won the 1987 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for his discovery of techniques to study the response of the body's immune system in order to protect against new disease agents. Formerly at the Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland, he has worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1981.

See also: Biology; Immunity.