Michael Sela

Michael Sela was an Israeli immunologist of Polish Jewish origin, born as Mieczyslaw Salomonowicz in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland, on 2 March 1924. When he was 11 his family moved to Romania, and in 1941 they immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, where he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, taking an M.Sc. in chemistry in 1946 and a Ph.D. in 1954. He was professor in the Immunology Department of the Weizmann Institute and served as president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot from 1975 to 1985. He is known for research in immunology, particularly on synthetic antigens, and his honours included membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971, Germany Emil von Behring Prize in 1972, membership of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 1976 and the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1980. He died in Rehovot on 27 May 2022 at the age of 98.