{"id":573147,"date":"2026-01-21T16:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=573147"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:08:17","slug":"immunologist-victor-nussenzweig-was-a-pioneer-in-malaria-vaccine-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/immunologist-victor-nussenzweig-was-a-pioneer-in-malaria-vaccine-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Immunologist Victor Nussenzweig was a pioneer in malaria vaccine research"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Miguel Boyayan \/ Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>The scientist during an interview with Pesquisa FAPESP<\/em> in S\u00e3o Paulo in 2004Miguel Boyayan \/ Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Victor Nussenzweig\u2019s decision to pursue science was influenced by university classmate Ruth Sonntag, a Brazilian scientist originally from Austria. It was the early 1950s, at the height of Brazil\u2019s \u201cThe Oil is Ours\u201d campaign. Victor was studying at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s School of Medicine (FM-USP) and was actively involved in meetings of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). That was until Ruth, with whom he had fallen in love, convinced him that through science, they could do something even more meaningful for the world. \u201cBack then, I was more interested in left-wing politics than science, but I started dating Ruth and she persuaded me that research would benefit people much more than politics,\u201d Victor recalled in a 2013 profile of the couple in the journal Science<\/em>. On August 11, he passed away in S\u00e3o Paulo at the age of 96.<\/p>\n

As undergraduates, Victor and Ruth together studied Trypanosoma cruzi<\/em>\u2014the parasite that causes Chagas disease\u2014under the supervision of parasitologist Samuel Pessoa (1898\u20131976). But it was much later, after getting married, raising three children, and establishing long careers at New York University (NYU), that they made their most important contribution: laying the scientific foundation for the development of the first malaria vaccine recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n

Victor was the second of three children born to Michel and Regina Nussenzweig, Polish Jews who fled to Brazil to escape antisemitic persecution in Europe. As a teenager, he gave private lessons to help support his family, as did his brothers: Israel (1925\u20132019), who became a nephrologist and professor at USP, and Herch Moys\u00e9s (1932\u20132022), who was a physicist and professor at USP and the University of Rochester, USA, before joining the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).<\/p>\n

Soon after beginning his medical degree, Victor met Ruth (1918\u20132018), who had been forced to flee Austria with her family after the country was annexed by Nazi Germany. Their connection was immediate, leading to a scientific partnership that lasted until her death in 2018 (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue no. 266<\/em>).<\/p>\n

They were married in the medical school library in 1952, just before graduating. In 1958, after Victor completed his doctorate, the couple began fellowships in France\u2014Ruth at the Coll\u00e8ge de France and Victor at the Pasteur Institute. Upon returning to Brazil in 1960, they realized they would not be able to do the kind of science there that they had done abroad, so they decided to try the US. In 1963, Victor was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and he and Ruth moved to New York. At NYU, he joined the lab of Venezuelan-born immunologist Baruj Benacerraf (1920\u20132011), who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in 1980, while Ruth worked with Hungarian parasitologist Zoltan Ovary (1907\u20132005).<\/p>\n

The couple tried to return to Brazil once more in 1964, after the military coup, but soon realized the political climate was inhospitable. Victor wrote to Benacerraf, who invited them back to NYU. Again, Victor worked with the future Nobel laureate, and Ruth with Ovary. Ruth would later found NYU\u2019s Department of Molecular Parasitology, becoming the first woman to chair a department at the university\u2019s medical school. The pair would only return to work in Brazil in 2012, and only for a few years, thanks to the S\u00e3o Paulo Excellence Chair (SPEC) program. At the Federal University of S\u00e3o Paulo (UNIFESP), they worked with parasitologist Sergio Schenkman to characterize enzymes essential to the malaria parasite\u2019s development and to search for new inhibitors.<\/p>\n

At NYU, Victor’s career flourished. In 1970, working with Brazilian immunologist Celso Bianco (1941\u20132018), he discovered that on the surface of immune system cells called B lymphocytes is a group of receptors that recognize certain blood proteins, which once activated, enhance antibody production. He also investigated the role of these proteins\u2019 receptors (components of the so-called complement system) in immune cells that engulf and digest pathogens. His laboratory became globally renowned in the field, helping to explain how other cells in the body support the impact of the immune response to infectious agents.<\/p>\n

Science, for Nussenzweig, had to be approached as a challenging, creative, and enjoyable activity<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the 1980s, Victor returned to his early interest in T. cruzi<\/em>, studying how the parasite invades cells and survives the immune system attack. At the same time, he worked with Ruth on developing a malaria vaccine.<\/p>\n

Victor\u2019s team produced antibodies that allowed them to identify CSP, a protein on the surface of the infective form (sporozoite) of Plasmodium<\/em>, that could be used to trigger the body’s immune response. By showing that using antibodies to neutralize CSP reduced sporozoite infectivity, Ruth and Victor laid the groundwork for several malaria vaccine candidates targeting Plasmodium falciparum<\/em>. One is Mosquirix, developed by GlaxoSmithKline and now administered to thousands of children in Africa.<\/p>\n

As professors at NYU, Victor and Ruth supervised dozens of students, one of whom was Julio Scharfstein. In 1974, after going into self-exile as a result of Institutional Act No. 5 (AI-5), which intensified repression in Brazil, Scharfstein, then 24 years old, was the first Brazilian to complete a doctorate under Victor’s supervision, investigating the complement system. \u201cHe welcomed students from across Latin America, including Chileans persecuted by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet or Brazilians struggling against the military regime. Victor and Ruth were deeply professional but also sensitive to our voices. During the Cold War, they were attentive to what was happening in Brazil, in Latin America, and around the world,\u201d recalls Scharfstein, now a professor at UFRJ.<\/p>\n

Victor\u2019s awareness of politics was also evident in his criticisms of how little value was placed on science in Brazil (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue no. 106<\/em>). \u201cScience, for him, had to be a challenging, creative, and enjoyable activity. When I said goodbye to Victor in 1978, he gave me lots of valuable advice. He knew that doing innovative science in Brazil under the unstable circumstances of the time would be difficult,\u201d recalls Scharfstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cVictor had deep knowledge of immunochemistry, while Ruth had a more parasitology-oriented perspective. He sought to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in the immune response against malaria, and she aimed to turn that understanding into practical solutions. It was a perfect match,\u201d says Schenkman, who did a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU under Victor\u2019s supervision between 1987 and 1991.<\/p>\n

The couple’s discoveries continue to bear fruit. A Brazilian team led by USP parasitologist Irene Soares is advancing trials of a vaccine candidate that targets Plasmodium vivax<\/em>, the parasite responsible for the most common form of malaria in Latin America. The project was initiated by Ruth\u2019s former student, UNIFESP immunologist Maur\u00edcio Rodrigues, who passed away in 2015 and was married to Soares. \u201cWe used essentially the same strategy as was used in the development of Mosquirix, but with a P. vivax<\/em> protein,\u201d says Soares. Animal testing has been completed and the team is awaiting authorization to begin human trials.<\/p>\n

Victor is survived by his three children: Michel, an immunologist; Andr\u00e9, a physicist who now works in genetics; and Sonia, a social scientist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With his wife Ruth, who was also a researcher, he developed the basis for immunization against the parasite that causes the disease","protected":false},"author":765,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1348],"tags":[242],"coauthors":[5170],"class_list":["post-573147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituary","tag-immunology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573156,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573147\/revisions\/573156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573147"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=573147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}