IN PURSUIT OF IgE: University of Uppsala researchers Gunnar Johansson and Hans Bennich characterized a protein from a myeloma patient using electrophoresis (drawings to the right reflect results in corresponding gels). The duo saw massive amounts of immunoglobulin (a) in the patient’s serum (ND), eclipsing that in normal serum (NS). Antibodies raised against the ND protein produced markedly similar patterns (b), suggesting ND was an immunoglobulin—a notion supported by removing ND light chains before running the gel (c). The remaining heavy chains belonged to IgE.
See full image: PDFReprinted from S.G.O. Johansson, H. Bennich, “Immunological studies of an atypical (myeloma) immunoglobulin,” Immunology, 13:381-94, 1967 with permission from Wiley
In the early 1960s, Kimishige Ishizaka, then an immunologist at the Children’s Asthma Research Institute and Hospital in Denver, volunteered himself as a human pincushion. In pursuit of understanding what was then a mysterious protein called reagin, Ishizaka had colleagues inject solutions of the protein into his own back. His self-torture—and that of peers around the globe who would likewise offer up their own skin for experiments—would ultimately lead to the discovery of immunoglobulin E (IgE), an antibody responsible for allergic reactions.
Researchers had been collecting clues about reagin—a molecule implicated in hay fever, allergic asthma, and other allergic conditions—decades before Ishizaka’s self-experimentation. Inspired by a 1919 report of a new horse allergy in a patient who received blood from a horse-sensitive donor, German researcher ...
