Ray D. Owen

Ray David Owen (October 30, 1915 – September 21, 2014) was a teacher and scientist whose discovery of unusual, “mixed,” red blood cell types in cattle twins in 1945 launched the fields of modern immunology and organ transplantation. Owen’s 1945 findings were published in the journal Science. This observation demonstrated that self was “learned” by the immune system during development and paved the way for research involving induction of immune tolerance and early tissue grafting. When Frank Macfarlane Burnet and Sir Peter Brian Medawar were awarded their 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance, Owen was not mentioned in the prize. However, in a letter to Owen, Medawar stated that he believed Owen should have also been included in the prize. Owen also led the successful effort to admit women as California Institute of Technology (or Caltech) undergraduates.

Owen was born and raised on a dairy farm in Genesee, Wisconsin, on October 30, 1915. He attended school at the two-room Genesee State Graded School for eight years. He continued his education at a high school in Waukesha, commuting the eight miles to and from school every day from his family’s farm. In 1937 Owen received a BS in biology from Carroll University (then Carroll College). In 1941 Owen received a PhD in genetics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he continued to work as a postdoctoral researcher and assistant professor for several years. It was during this time that Owen conducted his seminal work in twin calves. In 1946 Owen moved to Pasadena, California, to join the biology department at Caltech as a Gosney Fellow.

As a PhD student Owen studied mainly birds; his thesis was on the sterility of species hybrids. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Immunogenetics Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Owen’s research interests moved from fowl to cattle. The lab studied blood samples from cattle all over the world, investigating genetic markers and the inheritance of red blood cell antigens. This research led Owen to investigate a genetic situation involving twin calves fathered by different sires. Each calf expressed both sets of paternal blood group antigens. Owen’s “analyses revealed that the twins were chimeric, each containing their own blood cells as well as those derived from their twin sibling.” These twins were immunologically compatible.

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