Sir Marc Feldmann | |
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| Born | (1944-12-02)2 December 1944 (age 80) |
| Citizenship | Australia/United Kingdom |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | discovery ofanti-TNF therapy forrheumatoid arthritis and otherautoimmune diseases |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Immunology |
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| Doctoral students | Ashok Venkitaraman[1] |
Sir Marc Feldmann (born 2 December 1944) is an Australian-educated Britishimmunologist. He is a professor at theUniversity of Oxford and a senior research fellow atSomerville College, Oxford.[2]
Feldmann was born 2 December 1944 in Lvov to a Jewish family who managed to get to France immediately postwar.[3][4][5] He emigrated from France to Australia at age eight.[5] After graduating with anMBBS degree from theUniversity of Melbourne in 1967, he earned a Ph.D. in Immunology at theWalter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in 1972 with SirGustav Nossal.[3][4]
He moved to London in the 1970s, working first withAvrion Mitchison at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's Tumour Immunology Unit; in 1985 he moved to the Charing Cross Sunley Research Centre and the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology (which joined with the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College in 2000; in August 2011 the Institute transferred to the University of Oxford.[4]
In the 1980s he published an hypothesis for the mechanism of induction of autoimmune diseases, highlighting the role ofcytokines.[6] This model was validated in experiments with thyroid disease tissue. From 1984 he collaborated withRavinder N. Maini at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology to study disease mechanism in rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease affecting 1% of the population.[7]
Feldmann's group demonstrated that diseased joints have far more pro-inflammatory cytokines than normal, and postdoctoral researcherFionula Brennan identified one of these,tumour necrosis factor alpha, (abbreviated TNFα) as the key.[8]
Blocking TNFα reduced levels of the other pro-inflammatory cytokines in test-tube models of arthritis,[9] and this provided the rationale for testing TNF blockade in rheumatoid arthritis patients which had failed all existing treatment.
The first of a series of successful clinical trials was performed in 1992 at Charing Cross Hospital, using the antibodyinfliximab fromCentocor, a biotech now part of Johnson and Johnson.[citation needed]
The success led to other companies joining the race to market. By 1998,[10]etanercept (Enbrel)[11] was approved for treatment in the US, and by 1999, infliximab (Remicade) was also approved; there have been multiple additional approvedanti-TNF drugs, and they have become standard therapy for stopping the inflammatory and tissue-destructive pathways ofrheumatoid arthritis and otherautoimmune diseases includingCrohn's disease,ulcerative colitis,ankylosing spondylitis,psoriasis andpsoriatic arthritis.[7][12]
In 2000, Feldmann and Maini were awarded theCrafoord Prize;[13][14] in 2002, theCameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh; in 2003, theAlbert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research;[15] in 2008, theDr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research;[16] in 2010, theErnst Schering Prize in Germany; in 2014, theCanada Gairdner International Award. Feldmann was also awarded the John Curtin Medal of the Australian National University in 2007. In 2020 he received theTang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science.[17] and in 2024 theRoyal Medal of theRoyal Society jointly with Ravinder N. Maini.[18]
Feldmann is Fellow of theRoyal College of Physicians and of theRoyal College of Pathologists. He was elected a Fellow of several national Academies, theAcademy of Medical Sciences, theRoyal Society of London and is a Corresponding Member ofAustralian Academy of Science, and a Foreign Member of theNational Academy of Sciences, US. He wasknighted in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours.[19]
In 2012 he delivered theCroonian Lecture to theRoyal College of Physicians on anti-cytokine therapy.[20]
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