Arthur J. Ammann
| Arthur J. Ammann | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 12, 1936 |
| Fields | Pediatric Immunology |
| Alma mater |
Wheaton College (BS) New Jersey Medical School (MD) |
Arthur J. Ammann (born August 12, 1936) is a pediatric immunologist and advocate known for his research on HIV transmission and his role in the development of the first successful vaccine to prevent pneumococcal infection in 1977. Ammann is currently Founder of Global Strategies for HIV Prevention and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF).
Ammann was born in Brooklyn, New York to German parents, neither of whom ever finished grade school. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and attended Wheaton College in Illinois, continuing on to study medicine at New Jersey Medical School, where he received his M.D. in 1962. Ammann later became the first pediatric immunologist at UCSF, where he served his residency in pediatrics.
In 1966, for the first time, Ammann and Richard E. Stiehm documented Immunoglobulin A (IgA) as the major immunoglobulin class in breastmilk, present in high concentrations in colostrum mature breastmilk. They postulated that the protection afforded to infants by breast-feeding was a result of exposure to local antibodies contained within IgA rather than absorption of maternal antibody into these infants circulation.
Ammann, Stiehm and James D. Cherry identified that there are elevated levels of Immunoglobulin M (IgM) in the cord blood of newborn infants born with the congenital rubella syndrome. This was a major step forward in understanding the fetal immune response and developing diagnostic tools to differentiate between in utero infection with infectious agents such as rubella, toxoplasmosis and cytomegalovirus from infections acquired following birth
...
Wikipedia