Fritz Bach

Fritz Heinz Bach (5 April 1934 – 14 August 2011) was an Austrian-born American transplant physician and immunobiologist. He was considered one of the pioneers in the field of transplant immunology.

Being born in a Jewish family in Vienna, Bach fled Nazism at an early age. He was moved to England in the Kindertransport, and later with his family made the journey overseas to the United States. He obtained a scholarship to study at Harvard and continued his studies until graduating in 1960. Soon afterwards, Bach made his first contributions to the field of transplant immunology. One of his main achievements was the development of the mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) test, which furthered research on preventing transplant rejection. Bach spent the main part of his career at University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Minnesota and Harvard Medical School. He retired in 2006.

Early life Bach was born on 5 April 1934 to Leo Bach and Gertrude Rosenfeld in a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. Shortly after the events of the Kristallnacht of early November 1938, Bach and his older brother Bertholdt fled Nazi Germany to England with British help in the Kindertransport. After arriving the brothers were put in the care of a British family. The parents reunited with their sons in Bath, England. With help of an American soldier the family emigrated to Burlington, Vermont in 1949. Bach's maternal grandparents died in Nazi death camps after having stayed in Vienna during the war.

Bach's major contribution to transplant science was the invention of a technique to mix cells from donor material to cells from the patient. The process allowed for a better insight in which transplant material could be successfully transplanted to the patient without fear of transplant rejection. It was based on study of changing cell structures in vitro cultures of peripheral blood lymphocytes of unrelated individuals. Bach worked further on the possibilities of MLC with Kurt Hirschhorn in the 1960s.

Bach retired in 2006. In 1998 he was the winner of the Medawar Prize of The Transplantation Society.

At the end of his career Bach was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Vienna in 2004. His Austrian citizenship was also restored in this period.

Personal life Bach was married twice and had six children. Two of his sons became physicians. With his first wife Bach also collaborated during his career. He died on 14 August 2011, aged 77, from a cardiac arrest in his home in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.