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"He would get straight to the problem," Hal Broxmeyer, a long time collaborator now at Indiana University in Indianapolis, told The Scientist. "He would know the right questions to ask. It was a real pleasure knowing him. I learned not to be afraid to think outside the box."
In 1975, Boyse made "a very important contribution to immunology" by pointing out functionally distinct subsets of T-cells in mice, Harald von Boehmer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston wrote in an Email to The Scientist. Boyse and Harvey Cantor, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, purified T-cells and used cell surface markers to show that different subclasses of T-cells have specific functions. The study, published in Journal of Experimental Medicine, has been cited more than 1,200 times.
"This discovery [of T helper cells and T killer cells] gave subsequent generations of immunologists plenty to play with," von Boehmer wrote. For example, "we had to figure out how these different T-cell types that bear different antigen receptors recognizing antigens" were made, he added.
In 1989, Boyse and colleagues first suggested using umbilical cords as a source for blood-forming stem cells to be used in transplantations. "I think the biggest thing was - was there going to be enough [blood-forming stem] cells" in a single umbilical cord collection, said Broxmeyer.
After examining different cell types from about 100 umbilical cord collections, before and after cryopreservation, they concluded that sufficient numbers of blood-forming stem cells remained after freezing and could be shipped overnight for therapy. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has been cited nearly 600 times. Soon after, Boyse and Broxmeyer collaborated with researchers in Paris, conducting the first successful cord blood transplant, in a human patient with Faconi's anemia. The resulting publication in the New England Journal of Medicine has been cited about 750 times. Broxmeyer said he and Boyse remained close friends and colleagues since 1982, when Boyse initiated the collaboration.
Broxmeyer said there have been more than 10,000 successful umbilical cord transplantations since the studies were published. "In my mind, it was a breakthrough," Broxmeyer said. "I think we were both very lucky to be working together at that time."
Boyse "was thinking ahead of everyone else," said Ellen Goldberg, who was a graduate student with him from 1967 to 1971. Today, many parents have their babies' umbilical cord cells stored in a blood bank, she added.
Boyse was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1977, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the same year, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1979. He was the first person to hold full membership in all three organizations.
In a separate line of research that he maintained throughout his career, Boyse described the link between genetic differences in immune receptors and behavior of mice toward their kin. "He founded the field of immunogenetics," Gary Beauchamp, a collaborator of Boyse's from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, told The Scientist.
Boyse and Beauchamp studied odor recognition in mice, showing that mice choose mates based on their body odor types. They found that the types of odors a mouse has are determined through genetic differences in the major histocompatibility complex, a gene family that is critical for the immune response. The findings are "extremely important" in contexts of social behavior and genetic diversity, Goldberg said.
"His writing was superb. I shivered if I tried to change a sentence he wrote," Beauchamp said.
"As a scientist, he was a broad thinker," Goldberg told The Scientist. "He was always open to suggestions and ideas" from students and junior colleagues, she added.
Goldberg remembered Boyse initially being critical of her first paper, which was published in Nature when she was a graduate student. He gave her a rose later and apologized for being so harsh, Goldberg said. "He had a very soft side to him," she said. "His door was always open."
Kelly Rae Chi
mail@the-scientist.com
Image courtesy of University of Arizona.
Links within this article:
Edward Boyse
http://www.opa.medicine.arizona.edu/news/jul07/boyse.htm
Hal Broxmeyer
http://www.iupui.edu/~micro/broxmeyer.html
Harald von Boehmer
http://physicians.dana-farber.org/directory/profile.asp?dbase=main&setsize=10&display=Y&nxtfmt=r&gs=r&picture_id=0000121&lookup=Y&pict_id=0000121
Harvey Cantor
http://physicians.dana-farber.org/directory/profile.asp?dbase=main&setsize=10&display=Y&nxtfmt=r&gs=r&picture_id=0000080&lookup=Y&pict_id=0000080
H. Cantor and E.A. Boyse, "Functional subclasses of T-lymphocytes bearing different Ly antigens. I. The generation of functionally distinct T-cell subclasses is a differentiative process independent of antigen," J Exp Med, June 1, 1975.
http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/1092798
H.E. Broxmeyer et al., "Human umbilical cord blood as a potential source of transplantable hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells," Proc Natl Acad Sci, May 1989.
http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/2566997
E. Russo, "Cultivating policy from cell types," The Scientist, May 28, 2001.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/12436
E. Gluckman et al., "Hematopoietic reconstitution in a patient with Fanconi's anemia by means of umbilical-cord blood from an HLA-identical sibling," N Engl J Med, Oct. 26, 1989.
http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/2571931
Gary Beauchamp
http://perception.upenn.edu/faculty/pages/beauchamp.php
G.K. Beauchamp et al., "Preweaning experience in the control of mating preferences by genes in the major histocompatibility complex of the mouse," Behav Genet, July 1988.
http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/3190639
K. Yamazaki et al., "Discrimination of odortypes determined by the major histocompatibility complex among outbred mice," Proc Natl Acad Sci, Apr. 26, 1994.
http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/8170979
