Author: By Robert Cooke Globe Staff

Date: Saturday, October 11, 1980
Page: ?????
Section: RUN OF PAPER

NEWBURYPORT - George Snell is known by friends for the quality of his research, the glory of his garden, and persistence of spirit - even after his life's work was wiped out by fire.

Snell, 76, has devoted his life to deciphering the incredibly complex genetics of the mouse immune system, work for which he was named a corecipient yesterday of the 1980 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine.

The $215,000 award will be split among Snell, Baruj Benacerraf of Harvard University, and Jean Dausset of the University of Paris.

A quiet, unassuming man, Snell had in 1942 tackled one of the most important and difficult problems in biology: why tissue from one member of a species is rejected by another member of the same species.

That pioneering research, done at the Jackson Laboratory in scenic Bar Harbor, Maine, has led directly to the beginnings of an understanding of the mammalian immune response. He became one of the world's leading authorities on the genetics of the transplant reaction.

Snell's work, indeed, was a key element in making organ transplants possible, since it led to some understanding of how, and why, the body tries to reject implanted organs.

This work is also important toward understanding why the body is able to destroy some types of cancer cells, while others survive to grow into tumors.

He discovered what is called the H-2 histocompatibility complex in the mouse, which is similar to the set of genes in humans - the HLA hostocompatibility complex - responsible for identifying implanted organs as "foreign," or "nonself."

In an impromptu news conference yesterday, held at the Hoyt-Merrill House in Newburyport, Snell said the genetic system he uncovered is very complex, "not a single locus, but a whole group of genes."

He explained that his work was done by carefully breeding, cross-breeding and rebreeding selected strains of mice, gradually isolating the genes needed for study. In the process, too, he developed strains of laboratory mice that have been used all around the world in genetic experiments.

Snell began this work at Bar Harbor in 1933. A colleague at Bar Harbor said Snell "had gotten to the first set of crosses that was going to lead him someplace" when the mice were destroyed by a 1947 fire. That blaze took much of Acadia National Forest, along with an adjacent facility in which Snell's research was housed. " So he started all over again, and by 1957 he finally reached his goal."

Snell commented, as his wife, Rhoda, and one of his son's Peter, looked on, that "I worked on this as a problem in basic research. I was asking what these genes are like, how many there are and what their function is."

Noting that "everybody hopes that what they do will turn out to be useful," Snell said the work with laboratory mice "speeded up our understanding of the same system in man, and led to an understanding of organ transplants in general."

Snell and his wife were visiting in Newburyport because they had come to celebrate the grand opening of their son's new business, Snell Acoustics Inc., manufacturer of high fidelity loudspeakers. Mrs. Snell said all three of their sons - Peter, 34, Tom, 42, and Roy, 37 - had attended the celebration. Tom, of Wentworth, N.H., runs a data processing center, while Roy is an architect in South Woodstock, Vt.

In addition to his scientific work, a cousin, Katharine C. Snell, commented, he is a consummate gardener.

"His garden is the pride of Bar Harbor," she declared. A friend noted, too, that during World War II, when victory gardens were being emphasized, Snell's garden was outstanding.

Even though Snell officially retired from the staff at the Jackson Laboratory in 1973, the pace of his research work hasn't changed. Friends said he writes prolifically, visits his laboratory regularly, and is frequently involved in conferences and meetings.

"This research is something you either have to do full time, or not do at all," Snell commented yesterday. "You can't go at it halfway. You have to work at it full time, or get out."

Snell is the first Nobel laureate on the staff at the Jackson Laboratory. He received his bachelor's degree in biology at Dartmouth University in 1926, where he was known as an extraordinary clarinet player and outstanding member of the Dartmouth band.

He went on for his master's and doctor's degrees at Harvard University, and then returned to Dartmouth for a two-year stint as instructor. He also taught at Brown University before joining the Jackson Laboratory. Snell said his early work dealt with the damage done to genetic materials by X-rays.

COOKE ;10/10,16:08 MFEENE;10/13,16 B07982446