Zanvil A. Cohn

Zanvil Alexander Cohn (November 16, 1926 – June 28, 1993) was a cell biologist and immunologist who upon his death was described by The New York Times as being "in the forefront of current studies of the body's defenses against infection.", professor at Rockefeller University. There Cohn had been the Henry G. Kunkel Professor for seven years. Cohn was senior physician at the university as well as vice president for medical affairs. Until two years before his death, he also served as principal investigator of the Irvington Institute for Medical Research. Although Cohn never won the Nobel Prize, Ralph M. Steinman, with whom he ran a laboratory at Rockefeller University for many years, was named to win the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the work on dendritic cells done in their lab, eighteen years after Cohn's death.

By way of explaining Cohn's importance, one commentator has noted that macrophages "are scavenger cells of the immune system that engulf and digest invaders, including bacteria and other pathogens, as well as toxins and dead cells. They are central to so-called innate immunity—immune defenses that can act without previous exposure to a pathogen. They are central to inflammation, the responses of the body to infection and injury, and also when inflammation becomes chronic during diseases like atherosclerosis and tuberculosis. When Zanvil Cohn (1926-1993) began studying macrophages in the early 1960s, little was known about them. Immunologists had for decades focused on the chemistry of the second major component of the immune system—the acquired immune response, in which the body produces antibodies in response to exposure to an antigen. In pioneering studies, both at the laboratory bench and with human subjects, Cohn helped launch the new field of cellular immunology."

"Dr. Cohn's experiments," reported the Times in his obituary, "threw light on the functions of T-cells, made in the bone marrow, and macrophages, large cells that can surround and digest foreign substances like protozoa and bacteria. He applied these insights to patient-oriented investigations of leprosy, tuberculosis and AIDS. He also established that macrophages can release a multitude of biologically active products. Since the mid-1980s he used hormone-like products of the immune system to increase patients' resistance to microbial infections. This work took him to parts of Asia and Latin America where leprosy and tuberculosis are endemic."

Early life and pre-war education Cohn was born in New York City, the son of David and Esther (Schwartz) Cohn; he had one sibling, a brother, Donald, who was three years younger. Zanvil, a Yiddish version of Samuel, was a family name. His father had come to New York from Düsseldorf at age 19 in 1905 and after working for some years in his uncle Josef's butcher shop in Manhattan became an owner of Kansas Packing, a meat packing firm in New York. Cohn's mother, born in the United States of parents from Budapest, was raised in Huntington, Long Island, and worked as a buyer for Oppenheim, Collins & Co., a Manhattan clothing store, later becoming a partner in an apparel firm. As a child, Cohn spoke both German and English. He attended public schools in Queens, then Columbia Grammar School in Manhattan, where he played baseball and football, was president of the student government, and played piano at graduation. After graduating from Columbia Grammar at 16, Cohn attended Bates College in Maine, where he majored in biology. He was the first member of his family to attend college.

No one in Cohn's family had a medical or academic background. Moberg and Steinman say that he was motivated by Paul de Kruif's book Microbe Hunters and by Sinclair Lewis's novel Arrowsmith, as well as by his experiences with penicillin on the Liberty ships, to become a doctor and medical researcher. They also suggest that his interest in medicine, and particularly in the study of infectious diseases, might be traced back to a childhood "brush with death from scarlet fever that quarantined the whole family" and/or to his experiences with "the caring family physician who looked after his father, bedridden nearly a year following a severe bout of pneumonia." (Cohn's father died at 57 while Cohn was in high school.)

Career Cohn performed his internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, then entered the Army Medical Corps as a captain, working in the laboratory of virologist Joseph Smadel at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. For two years Cohn "explored respiratory enzymes and the cell wall of the intracellular parasite Rickettsia tsutsugamushi."

Selected publications 1960 With J. G. Hirsch. The isolation and properties of the specific cytoplasmic granules of rabbit polymorphonuclear leucocytes. J. Exp. Med. 112:983-1004. With J. G. Hirsch. Degranulation of polymorphonuclear leucocytes following phagocytosis of microorganisms. J. Exp. Med. 112:1005-1014. With J. G. Hirsch. The influence of phagocytosis on the intracellular distribution of granule‑associated components of polymorphonuclear leucocytes. J. Exp. Med. 112:1015-1022.

1963 With E. Wiener. The particulate hydrolases of macrophages. II . Biochemical and morphological response to particle ingestion. J. Exp. Med. 118:1009-1020.

1965 With B. Benson. The differentiation of mononuclear phagocytes. Morphology, cytochemistry, and biochemistry. J. Exp. Med. 121:153-170.

1966 With M. E. Fedorko and J. G. Hirsch. The in vitro differentiation of mononuclear phagocytes. V. The formation of macrophage lysosomes. J. Exp. Med. 123:757-766.

1967 With B. A. Ehrenreich. The uptake and digestion of iodinated human serum albumin by macrophages in vitro. J. Exp. Med. 126:941-958.

1968 With R. van Furth. The origin and kinetics of mononuclear phagocytes. J. Exp. Med. 128:415-435.

1969 With B. A. Ehrenreich. The uptake, storage, and intracellular hydrolysis of carbohydrates by macrophages. J. Exp. Med. 129:201-225.

1972 With A. L. Hubbard. The enzymatic iodination of the red cell membrane. J. Cell Biol. 55:390-405. With R. M. Steinman. The interaction of soluble horseradish peroxidase in mouse peritoneal macrophages in vitro. J. Cell Biol. 55:186-204. With R. van Furth, J. G. Hirsch, J. H. Humphrey, W. G. Spector, and H. L. Langevoort. The mononuclear phagocyte system: A new classification of macrophages, monocytes, and their precursor cells. Bull. W. H. O. 46:845-852.

1973 With R. M. Steinman. Identification of a novel cell type in peripheral lymphoid organs of mice. I. Morphology, quantitation, tissue distribution. J. Exp. Med. 137:1142-1162.

1974 With S. Gordon and J. Todd. In vitro synthesis and secretion of lysozyme by mononuclear phagocytes. J. Exp. Med. 139:1228-1248. With S. Gordon and J. C. Unkeless. Induction of macrophage plasminogen activator by endotoxin stimulation and phagocytosis. Evidence for a two-stage process. J. Exp. Med. 140:995-1010.

1976 With R. M. Steinman and S. E. Brodie. Membrane flow during pinocytosis. A stereologic analysis. J. Cell Biol. 68:665-687.

1977 With S. C. Silverstein and R. M. Steinman. Endocytosis. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 46:669-722.

1978 With N. Nogueira. Trypanosoma cruzi: In vitro induction of macrophage microbicidal activity. J. Exp. Med. 148:288-300.

1979 With C. F. Nathan, S. C. Silverstein, and L. H. Brukner. Extracellular cytolysis by activated macrophages and granulocytes. II . Hydrogen peroxide as a mediator of cytotoxicity. J. Exp. Med. 149:100-113.

1980 With I. S. Mellman, R. M. Steinman, and J. C. Unkeless. Selective iodination and polypeptide composition of pinocytic vesicles. J. Cell Biol. 86:712-722. With W. A. Muller and R. M. Steinman. The membrane proteins of the vacuolar system. II . Bidirectional flow between secondary lysosomes and plasma membrane. J. Cell Biol. 86:304-314. With C. F. Nathan and H. W. Murray. The macrophage as an effector cell. N. Engl. J. Med. 303:622-626. With W. A. Scott, J. M. Zrike, A. L. Hamill, and J. Kempe. Regulation of arachidonic acid metabolites in macrophages. J. Exp. Med. 152:324-335.

1982 With W. A. Scott, N. A. Pawlowski, H. W. Murray, M. Andreach, and J. Zrike. Regulation of arachidonic acid metabolism by macrophage activation. J. Exp. Med. 155:1148-1160. With W. C. Van Voorhis, G. Kaplan, E. N. Sarno, M. A. Horwitz, R. M. Steinman, W. R. Levis, N. Nogueira, L. S. Hair, C. R. Gattass, and B. A. Arrick. The cutaneous infiltrates of leprosy. Cellular characteristics and the predominant T-cell phenotypes. N. Engl. J. Med. 307:1593-1597. With J. D. Young, T. M. Young, L. P. Lu, and J. C. Unkeless. Characterization of a membrane pore-forming protein from Entamoeba histolytica. J. Exp. Med. 156:1677-1690.

1983 The macrophage—versatile element of inflammation. In The Harvey Lectures: 1981–1982, series 77, pp. 63–80. Harvey Society of New York. With R. M. Steinman, I. S. Mellman, and W. A. Muller. Endocytosis and the recycling of plasma membrane. J. Cell Biol. 96:1-27.

1986 With A. A. Aderem, D. S. Cohen, and S. D. Wright. Bacterial lipopolysaccharides prime macrophages for enhanced release of arachidonic acid metabolites. J. Exp. Med. 164:165-179.

1988 With A. A. Aderem, K. A. Albert, M. M. Keum, J. K. T. Wang, and P. Greengard. Stimulus-dependent myristoylation of a major substrate for protein kinase C. Nature (Lond.) 332:362-364.