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PROFILEPhilippa MarrackAn obsession with immunology and a gritty approach has
guided Philippa Marrack through the mysteries of T cell
biology. Along the way, she has managed to solve more than a
handful of the puzzles..com/naturemedicinehttp://www.natureGroup 2004 One summer Saturday in1997, a group of teenage boys was loitering on
the National Jewish Medical and Research Center campus in downtown
Denver. The three boys asked immunologist Philippa Marrack if they
could use the bathroom inside, but after a few minutes of goofing off,
they stole her keycard and made a run for it. Undaunted, Marrack
dressed in jogging attire, with her hair dyed green and a manuscript in
handchased them for half a mile into a rough neighborhood.I didnt stop when they started throwing rocks, but then they peppersprayed me and I held up the manuscript as a shield, Marrack now says
casually. That incident, in part, prompted Thomas Mitchell, a former
postdoctoral fellow, to give Marrack a movie poster of John Waynes True
Grit. In her direct manner, Marrack says true grit also means you cant
crumble under a reviewers comments.You only get a day to scream and
kick the walls, she says.Then you have to get up and go on.Known to colleagues as Pippa, Marrack is described alternately as
gracious, opinionated, self-effacing and tenacious. A Howard Hughes
investigator since 1986, Marrack freely admits to an obsession with
immunology and is credited with, among other things, discovering the
T-cell receptor, the mechanism of T-cell tolerance and how superantigens directly stimulate T cells.Pippa is unrelenting in her pursuit of answers, says Susan Swain,
Marracks longtime colleague and president and director of the Trudeau
Institute in Saranac Lake, New York.If she...