Polly Celine Eveline Matzinger (born July 21, 1947 in La Seyne, France) is an immunologist who proposed a novel explanation of how the immune system works, called the danger model.
Was working as a cocktail waitress at a bar near University of California at Davis when she overheard scientists discussing their work. She asked them some questions (including, allegedly, "Why has no animal ever mimicked a skunk?"?), and Dr. Robert Sidney Schwab (1903-1972) became friends with her and encouraged her to study biology. As Matzinger's previous work experience was as a dog trainer and a jazz musician, it took several months before she agreed. As a result, she wound up as chief of an immunology lab at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and eventually produced a film on the immune system that won the top award in educational films at the Cologne Film Festival.
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A former Playboy bunny at the Denver Playboy Club, 1969.
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Served as Section Head of the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Immunology at the National Institutes of Health.
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Matzinger's great insight into immunology was that the human immune system does not distinguish between "self" and "other," which was the universal paradigm before she began to publish, but between "benign" and "dangerous." This seems self-evident, but many immunologists behaved with hostility toward her for this "maverick" idea.
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Matzinger came up with a breakthrough in immunology while spending an afternoon with her border collie, who was awakened by noises of fear from a nearby flock of sheep. Using the event as a metaphor, Matzinger realized that the immune system is like a collie who looks for signs of distress in the body.
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Death by Design: Where Parallel Worlds Meet
1997
Documentary
Herself
Horizon
1997
TV Series documentary
Herself
Known for movies
Death by Design: Where Parallel Worlds Meet 1997 as Herself
$800,000
