Ruggero Ceppellini (1917 in Milan – 1988) was a leading Italian geneticist. Ceppellini made several important contributions in the field of immunogenetics, and understanding of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA).
During service as a sergeant in World War II, Ceppellini was captured by the British and as a prisoner of war in Palestine, was a medical orderly under Chaim Sheba. After the war he finished his medical training and decided to specialize in genetics; Luca Cavalli-Sforza influenced his decision and obtained a place for him at the University of Milan Istituto Sieroterapico Milanese.
Ceppellini trained at the Lister Institute in London, then was visiting investigator at the University of Columbia Institute for the Study of Human Variation. After returning to Italy in the late 1950s, in 1962 he became Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of Turin, where he founded the Institute of Medical Genetics and began his work on HLA.
References
- EFI Conference 2013 - CEPPELLINI LECTURE "The lecture is named in honour of Ruggero Ceppellini (1917-1988) an Italian geneticist who was greatly influential in the HLA field."
- Annual Review of Immunology 11 - Page 19 C. Garrison Fathman, Henry Metzger, William E. Paul - 1993 "The first is Ruggero Ceppellini, who (together with Walter Bodmer) gets the credit for educating the HLA community in basic genetics. Ceppellini has made a number of very important contributions in the field of immunogenetics, and to science ..."
- ^ W. F. Bodmer, "In memoriam: Ruggiero Ceppellini, 1917 – 1988", Immunogenetics 29 (1989) 145–47 (pdf)
- Paul Lawrence Farber, Hamilton Cravens Race and Science: Scientific Challenges to Racism in Modern America 2009 Page 109 "Ceppellini was born in Milan and trained at the Lister Institute in London. Shortly after the Dunns left Italy, Ceppellini went at Columbia as a visiting investigator at the Institute for the Study of Human Variation. He remained in New York from ..."