Prof. Dr. Robert Smail Jack...
... studied Biochemistry in Edinburgh and went for his PhD to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He completed his thesis work, which involved protein sequencing, in 1972 and then moved to Klaus Rajewsky’s laboratory in Cologne to learn about immunology and work on the development of lymphoid cells using the mouse teratoma model. This got him interested in developmental biology and so he moved to Walter Gehring’s group in the Biozentrum in Basel where he worked on sequence specific DNA binding proteins – work which Robert Jack continued when he returned to the LMB and in a subsequent spell in the Genetics Institute in Cologne. In Cologne he had a chance to learn about mouse knock out technology and from then on used this approach in the Immunology Institute in Greifswald to ask questions about the functioning of the innate immune system. Robert Jack retired three years ago but retains a keen interest in workings of the immune system.