Manfred M. Mayer

Manfred Martin Mayer (15 June 1916, Frankfurt am Main – 18 September 1984, Baltimore) was a German-born, American microbiologist and immunologist. He is considered the founder of complement research.

Biography Manfred M. Mayer attended elementary school and secondary school in Germany. Mayer's family fled to the United States in December 1933 because of political events. He graduated from City College of New York in 1938 with a bachelor's degree and from Columbia University in 1946 with a PhD under the supervision Michael Heidelberger with a dissertation on the chemistry and immunology of phosphorylated serum albumin. Mayer published several papers on precipitin reactions and the cross-reactivity of various polysaccharides in the envelope of Streptococcus pneumoniae . Mayer, with Elvin A. Kabat, published the textbook Experimental Immunochemistry , which between 1948 and 1984 had two editions and seven reprints. Nelson and Mayer also developed Nelson-Mayer basal medium for growing Treponema pallidum bacteria in vitro.

He and his wife Elinor S. Mayer (1921–2007) were married in 1943 and had four sons. Manfred Mayer's students include Teruko Ishizaka.

Awards and honors 1953 — Kimble Award for Methodology 1957 — Selman Waksman Lectureship Award 1969 — Honorary Doctor of Medical Science, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany 1974 — Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award, American Association of Blood Banks 1976 — Albion O. Bernstein Award, Medical Society of the State of New York 1976/1977 — President of the American Association of Immunologists 1979 — Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1982 — Gairdner Foundation International Award, Toronto, Canada