Jacques Miller

Despite its large size the function of the thymus was unknown until relatively recently. Dr. Jacques Miller working in Australia was the first to demonstrate that the thymus played a significant role in the development of the immune response. In 1961 he published his studies on neonatal thymectomy in mice. These animals showed a loss of lymphocytes from the blood stream and were unable to reject skin grafts from allogenic mice, indicating a loss of cell mediated immune responses. Thus with a series of simple experiments he established for the first time, the role of the thymus and laid the foundations of modern cellular immunology.

Tizard Immunology 4th Ed p 108