Bo Dupont, MD, PhD, is an emeritus member of the Immunology Program in the Sloan Kettering Institute. He is an internationally recognized leader in the field of immunogenetics who has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the histocompatibility complex, the significance of HLA and HLA-associated allelic polymorphisms to disease, the immunobiology of transplantation, and the contribution of natural killer cells to innate leukemia resistance.
Dr. Dupont was the first to provide evidence for the existence of a separate gene locus termed HLA-D. He later developed techniques to type and define the multiple alleles that constitute this locus and was the first to provide evidence supporting the importance of the HLA D locus in the selection of adequately histocompatible, but HLA-non-identical relatives. This work eventually led to the first successful unrelated transplant.
A founder of the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, Dr. Dupont helped to transform standard histocompatibility testing from a serologically based system to one based on DNA nucleotide sequencing, which has now become the standard for the world.
Dr. Dupont came to Memorial Sloan Kettering in 1973. At MSK, he established the Histocompatibility Laboratory and played an essential role in the early development of the Allogeneic Marrow Transplant Program. He also contributed greatly to the Graduate School of Medical Sciences through the Fundamental Immunology course, which he established.
He is the recipient of the Louise and Allston Boyer Award in Clinical Investigation from Memorial Sloan Kettering, the Rose Payne Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation.
He received his medical degree from the University of Aarhus Medical School and thereafter received a Doctor of Science in immunology from the University of Copenhagen. He did his residency training in internal medicine at the University of Copenhagen and thereafter did a research fellowship at the Biochemical Institute of the University of Copenhagen to conduct research in immunogenetics.