Immunology History Timeline

Immunology History Timeline

• 430 BCE – Thucydides observes that individuals who recovered from the plague in Athens did not get reinfected, indicating early recognition of acquired immunity.

• 1000 CE – Chinese and Indian physicians use variolation (inoculation with smallpox material) to protect against smallpox, marking the first recorded form of immunization.

• 1796 – Edward Jenner demonstrates that cowpox exposure provides protection against smallpox, founding the concept of vaccination.

• 1800 – Vaccination becomes widely accepted in Europe following Jenner’s work, replacing traditional variolation.

• 1880 – Louis Pasteur develops the first laboratory-produced vaccines (for chicken cholera and anthrax), introducing the principle of attenuated vaccines.

• 1885 – Pasteur successfully uses a rabies vaccine on a human, marking the first therapeutic use of vaccination.

• 1890 – Emil von Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato discover antitoxins and develop serum therapy for diphtheria and tetanus, founding passive immunization.

• 1891 – Paul Ehrlich proposes the “side-chain theory” to explain how antibodies bind to antigens, laying the groundwork for immunochemistry.

• 1901 – Emil von Behring is awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for serum therapy.

• 1908 – Elie Metchnikoff and Paul Ehrlich share the Nobel Prize for discoveries in cellular (phagocytosis) and humoral (antibody-based) immunity.

• 1930s – Discovery of blood groups (ABO system by Karl Landsteiner) and development of transfusion immunology.

• 1942 – Development of the first effective vaccines for typhus and influenza during World War II.

• 1957 – Macfarlane Burnet and Frank Fenner propose the clonal selection theory, explaining how immune cells recognize and remember antigens.

• 1972 – Rodney Porter and Gerald Edelman win the Nobel Prize for determining the structure of antibodies.

• 1975 – Georges Köhler and César Milstein develop the hybridoma technique for producing monoclonal antibodies.

• 1983 – Discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo, marking a major development in viral immunology.

• 1990 – Approval of the first cytokine therapies (e.g., interferon, interleukin) for cancer and viral infections.

• 2005 – Ralph Steinman discovers dendritic cells’ role in antigen presentation, leading to a posthumous Nobel Prize in 2011.

• 2010 – Approval of the first cancer immunotherapy vaccine (sipuleucel-T for prostate cancer), marking the start of immuno-oncology.

• 2011 – Discovery of immune checkpoint inhibitors (e.g., anti-CTLA-4, anti-PD-1) revolutionizes cancer immunotherapy.

• 2017 – FDA approves first CAR T-cell therapies (e.g., Kymriah and Yescarta) for leukemia and lymphoma.

• 2020 – mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna) deployed globally, validating synthetic RNA platforms in immunization.

• 2022 – Development of pan-sarbecovirus vaccine candidates and next-generation immune profiling methods (e.g., single-cell and spatial immunology)