Jean Dausset passed away on June 6, 2009. Holder of the Chair of Experimental Medicine at the Collège de France from 1977 to 1987, he was responsible for one of the most important discoveries ever made in immunology, that of the HLA system. This discovery has had multiple implications: in fundamental immunology, with the characterization of the genes of the HLA complex; in genetics and anthropology, as HLA polymorphism can serve as a marker of the diversity of the human genome and therefore of the migrations of human populations; in predictive medicine, due to the association of HLA with certain diseases; in transplantation, as HLA typing enables better tolerance of the transplant.
In 1984, Jean Dausset created the Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme Humain (CEPH), which was transformed in 1993 into the Fondation Jean Dausset, and which produced the first detailed genetic map of man, a prelude to the sequencing of the human genome.
These Jean Dausset Days will retrace the major fields opened up by the discovery of HLA and its applications, for which Jean Dausset was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1980.