Professor Sir Marc Feldmann Kt AC FMedSci FRS (b. 1944) graduated in medicine at the University of Melbourne, before taking a PhD at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute studying in vitro immune responses and immune regulation with Sir Gustav Nossal. He undertook postdoctoral research (1972) with Avrion Mitchison at the ICRF Tumour Immunology Unit, which led to the generation (1983) of a new hypothesis for the mechanism of autoimmunity. Testing this idea led him to leave ICRF and move to the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology. There, with Maini and Brennan, TNF was defined systematically as a therapeutic target for RA, and, together with Maini, he led clinical trials to verify this concept in patients. This work has led to much recognition, election to Academies of Science in Australia, USA, and the UK (Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences), as well as to major research prizes shared with Ravinder Maini, including the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy (2000), the Albert Lasker Clinical Research Award (2003), the Paul Janssen Prize (2008), the Ernst Schering Prize (2010), and the Canada Gairdner Award (2014). Feldmann was also ‘European Inventor of the Year’ in the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ category in 2007. Knighted in 2010, he also received the Australian equivalent ‘Companion of the Order of Australia’ in 2014.

 

Professor Sir Ravinder Nath (Tiny) Maini Kt FRS FMedSci FRCP MB BChir (b. 1937) studied medicine at Cambridge University and Guy’s Hospital London, graduating in 1962. He undertook postgraduate clinical training and a fellowship in clinical immunology in London. In 1970 he was appointed Consultant Physician at Charing Cross Hospital, and since then he combined practice as a clinician in rheumatology and internal medicine with laboratory based immunological research at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology. He was appointed Professor of Immunology at Charing Cross Medical School in 1979, and from 1990 to 2002 he was Professor of Rheumatology and Scientific Director/Head of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, at Imperial College, London, until his retirement. His ‘bench to bedside’ research, in collaboration with Marc Feldmann, which commenced in 1985, has resulted in the development of anti-TNF immunotherapy of RA. Following the identification of TNF as a therapeutic target and translation of anti-TNF therapy to the clinic, Professors Maini and Feldmann have been jointly awarded many prizes, notably the Crafoord Prize by the Royal

Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Lasker Prize for Clinical Research, the Dr Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research, the Ernst Schering Prize, and the Canada Gairdner International Award. He has been Emeritus Professor of Rheumatology at Imperial College, London since 2002, and a Visiting Professor to the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at Oxford.