Who is Who of the BII-Alumni

                     For the Event of BII-at-40, 10th June, 2011

Edited by
Una Chen and Randy Baron

Published by
BII-Alumni-Get-Together

International Senior Professional Institute e.V. (ISPIe.V.)

Coverpage: Siebdruck / Screen-print of a sketch on “free association”

Introduction
Friday, 10th June 2011, will be the official 40th anniversary of the Basel Institute for Immunology (BII-at-40), we are organizing various celebration events, including a two-day-symposium on “Immune Responses and Autoimmunity” (www.ispiev.org, under Symposium 2011), public education on “Immunity and Diseases”, a concert, an exhibition, and a dinner party.

A booklet “Who is Who of the BII-Alumni” includes the good wishes of many alumni and friends who come to celebrate the BII-at-40 as well as those who could not attend this event.

The BII was founded and supported by Hoffmann-La Roche and, since its foundation in 1971, had an outstandingly brilliant 30 years history until its closure in 2001. The BII has produced three Nobel Prize winners: Niels Jerne, Georges Köhler (with Cesar Milstein, 1984) and Susumu Tonegawa (1987). It was the “Mecca“of the immunology-scientific community. Several hundreds of scientists passed through the Institute, either as a scientific member, a visiting scientist, or a student. Even today, one third of immunologists of the immunology world, actively contributing to the field of immunology, spent sometime of their life in the BII and in the city of Basel.

Looking back to the BII time and the development of alumni, one finds that in the 30 years of operation, the Institute attracted hundreds of people with very original thinking, free minds and many unique personalities. Many BII members are leaders by nature, most of them are creatively talented in many fields and are still conducting break-through research contributing to knowledge and the welfare of mankind. The spirit of BII continues even after the closing of the Institute; many of the BII alumni are actively involved in creative work at present and are transferring the legacy of the BII spirit to the successive generation. Many BII alumni are giants and heroes in the field that they now are actively engaged in.
Through the opportunity of this symposium, we wish to enable the speakers, participants, and supporting organizations to get together in order to reconnect, to discuss and maybe to spark additional collaborations in the future.
We are looking forward to your participation in this BII-at-40 event to make it into another unforgettable celebration event.

Una Chen, Ph.D. U.C.Berkeley
on behalf of Organization Committee of BII-at-40 Event
and
Co-editor of Who is Who of the BII-Alumni 2011