The University of Bonn Faculty of Medicine has awarded an honorary doctorate to renowned Australia-based immunologist Prof. Dr. Jacques Francis Albert Pierre Miller. The award ceremony was conducted online due to the corona pandemic, held as part of the Digital Cluster Science Days 2020 organized by the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2.
The ceremony took place via simultaneous videoconferencing between the lecture hall of Biomedical Center I on the Venusberg Campus and Melbourne, Australia, where Professor Miller (89) is Professor Emeritus at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. One of Miller’s former doctoral students, Professor Robyn Slattery, presented the diploma following the ceremonial pronouncement of awarding of the honorary doctorate by Professor Bernd Weber as Dean representing the University of Bonn. Speeches in honor of the recipient were made by Leibniz Prize winner Professor Christian Kurts and by Professor Sammy Bedoui, Bonn University Ambassador in Melbourne, Australia.
The board of the ImmunoSensation2 Cluster of Excellence had suggested to confer the honorary degree in recognition of Professor Miller’s outstanding achievement in the field of immunology. Jaques Miller earned wide scientific attention in the 1960s for proving that the thymus is a critically important component of the immune system as the organ where T cells are formed. The existence of T cells, as well as their key role in immunological memory against bacteria, viruses and cancer had not been appreciated prior to this discovery.
Congratulations Jaques Miller for this honorary degree and the Cluster ImmunoSensation is happy to have such close ties with its partners the University of Melbourne in operating The Bonn and Melbourne Research and Graduate School (Bo&MeRanG) for the Immunosciences.
Media contact
Prof. Dr. Christian Kurts
Phone: +49 (0) 228 287-11050
Email: ckurts@uni-bonn.de
