The BSI is saddened to learn about the recent death of Dr Michael Parkhouse, who made an outstanding contribution to the field of immunology over a period of more than six decades.
Michael Parkhouse (Mike) was born in London on 28 December 1935 to Welsh parents – Vernon, a headmaster, and Mwvanwy, a teacher – two years before his brother, William. At the outbreak of the second world war, the boys were evacuated to Swansea Valley and lived with their grandparents until the end of the war, attending the local primary school. By then, Mike was reported to be very competitive, highly intelligent and with a fervour to learn. He continued his education in London, completing grammar school and obtaining a degree in zoology at King’s College London, where he developed an interest in host–pathogen interactions.
After earning a PhD at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital, Mike joined the group of Dick Dutton at The Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California, for a Postdoctoral Fellowship to study lymphocyte activation. He continued his postdoc with Edwin Lennox at the Salk Institute, where he worked on the biosynthesis of immunoglobulin heavy chains. Armed with a robust background in biochemistry and immunology, Mike was recruited in 1967 by John Humphrey as an independent staff scientist to the Division of Immunology of the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), in Mill Hill, London, which was an exciting and internationally renowned environment for immunology research. Here, Mike conducted pioneering studies in immunoglobulin research, collaborating with many famous researchers, such as Brigitte (Ita) Askonas, who later became Head of the Division of Immunology after John Humphrey’s departure. With Ita, Mike would develop a long-lasting friendship based on scientific interactions, mutual respect and loyalty.
The NIMR was also famous for many other areas of life science research, including parasitology, and accordingly Mike expanded his research programme from immunoglobulin synthesis to the immune response to model antigens and pathogens, initially collaborating with Bridget Ogilvie on pioneering research to identify surface antigens of the nematode Trichinella spiralis. Eventually his research interests encompassed a broad array of parasites and he accumulated a large number of collaborators from Latin America, particularly Mexico, as well as research trainees, whose admiration and loyalty he always merited. After Ita retired in 1988, Mike moved to the Institute for Animal Health at The Pirbright Institute as Head of Immunology, where, ever inquisitive and creative, he turned his attention to the immune response to viruses in cattle and pigs. In 1999, Mike transferred his research group to the Gulbenkian Institute in Portugal, where he continued to work until his death in 2023.
The breadth of Mike’s scientific knowledge was astounding. He is well known for his work on the immune response against an array of pathogens, including African swine fever virus, foot-and-mouth disease virus, and even murine gammaherpesvirus, and he could tell you many things you didn’t know about all of these. Mike is less well known for his pioneering work on basic immunology, particularly in humoral immunology. Perhaps owing to the wide range of his research work, and his modesty – which always prevented him from blowing his own trumpet – nowadays almost nobody remembers that he was the first to show that immunoglobulin variable and constant regions are synthesised as a single polypeptide chain from the same mRNA molecule.1 In 1967 this was ground-breaking. More people (still not many) may know that he was the first to identify the murine homologue of IgD,2 and to generate an IgD specific antiserum.3 This work demonstrated that IgD is an evolutionarily conserved Ig class and opened the way to subsequent studies on B cell ontogeny, activation and class switching.4,5 He also found a hexameric form of IgM6 with powerful complement fixing activity.7 Sadly, also few people know that Mike was the first to show the presence in normal splenic B lymphocytes of the IgM associated molecules Igα (mb-1, aka CD79a) and Igβ (B-29, aka CD79b).8 These molecules are necessary for surface expression of IgM and mediate signal transduction downstream of the surface receptor. Their role was simultaneously described by Michael Reth in a myeloma cell line.9 The impact of Mike’s immunoglobulin work could still be appreciated years later.
The great love of Mike’s life, Erika Abney, with whom he made the fundamental discoveries on IgD, joined his group at the NIMR in January 1972 as a postdoc. In September 1975, Erika was to return to Mexico to take the position of independent researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. As she recounts, on her last day at Mill Hill, she was waiting at the bus stop for the famous 240 bus, as many have done through the years. There, she was joined by Mike who promptly kissed her. This encounter would affect the rest of their lives. Soon after, Mike organised a sabbatical in Mexico City, arriving with his three children from a previous marriage – Luke, Vana and Dafydd – in tow. Michael stayed 16 months and married Erika on 26 August 1976. They all returned to London in May 1977, with Erika becoming a mother to Mike’s three children. Michael re-joined the NIMR and Erika went to work with Martin Raff at UCL.
I met Parkhouse while waiting for the 240 bus, when I was a PhD student at Mill Hill. Ten months into my PhD I recognised Parkhouse as an NIMR employee, so accepting a lift from him seemed safe, but I had no clue as to whether he was a scientist or an electrician. Hence I explained to him in very basic terms, that bugs need to stick to our cells in order to infect, and preventing this might help prevent infection. He replied: ‘I work on lymphocyte cell surface molecules and know how to make monoclonal antibodies, so this could help your PhD project, and isn’t your boss leaving next month?’ Thus started a great collaboration and my introduction to the immune system, influencing the rest of my career.
- Anne O’Garra, Francis Crick Institute
Mike moved to the Gulbenkian Institute in late 1999, by which time I was preparing my move to the Pasteur Institute. I had known him very well for many years, but sadly we only overlapped briefly in Oeiras. In those days the institute was undergoing a profound renovation, so Mike had no attributed space, no lab and no office. It often happened that I would arrive in the morning after Mike (he was an early bird) and find him occupying my desk, from where, after long, hilarious conversations, I had to evict him in order to get on with my work. Mike endured the vagaries of his situation at the Gulbenkian Institute with stoicism, and rapidly developed close interactions with the junior group leaders and their students. He would dine with them frequently at the Pombalino, his favourite restaurant. This is where, according to him, ‘the wine is so cheap that one doesn’t have to finish the bottle’. After I moved to Paris I kept in close touch with him during my frequent visits to London. I am glad that, in spite of his obvious frailty, he managed to attend the 50th anniversary meeting of the Portuguese Society for Immunology in March 2023 where he received the tribute of the Society for his contributions to Portuguese Immunology.
- Paulo Vieira, The Pasteur Institute, Paris
Mike was a very entertaining person. His wit, deployed copiously during his conferences and seminars, made his talks very enjoyable to all who listened. In less public settings, he was wont to call on a large repertoire of jokes, most of them unprintable here. He was a bon vivant and gourmet of refined tastes, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the best typical, inexpensive restaurants in practically any town. He had first-hand experience of all of them, acquired on multiple trips to meet his numerous collaborators around the world, especially in Spain, Portugal, Mexico and Venezuela. The suggestions were always worth a try. Mike was also a performer, having played Shakespearean characters and performed stand-up comedy in village halls. His musical abilities were also well known. As a close friend of his said, “he played any instrument that one could blow or strum”. He was also a connoisseur of classical music (a real opera buff) and, in that peculiar British fashion, never failed to follow the latest cricket scores. He ran almost daily, until the severity of his treatments prevented it.
Mike developed oesophageal cancer in 2013. In 2014, he discharged himself from the Royal Free Hospital, where he was receiving intensive chemotherapy, and, dressed in a smart, light suit, attended the Memorial Meeting at the Royal Society for Ita Askonas. At the memorial, he delivered a remarkable presentation covering molecular mechanisms of host immunity and pathogen-induced immune evasion, finishing off with his work on cysticercosis. This work was the result of collaborations with many past members of his lab, from Venezuela, Spain, Edinburgh, Mexico and Peru. He actively pursued these collaborations until the very end, on 1 October 2023.
In a research career spanning 64 years, Mike authored 300 research publications. All his friends and fellow immunologists will profoundly miss him.
Anne O’Garra, The Francis Crick Institute, London and Paulo Vieira, The Pasteur Institute, Paris
We would like to thank Erika Abney, John Skehel, John McCauley and Tony Minson for sharing their memories of Mike Parkhouse with us.
References:
- Knopf et al. 1967 Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 58 2288-2295
- Abney et al. 1974 Nature 252 600-602
- Abney et al. 1976 Nature 259 404-406
- Parkhouse et al. 1977 Immunol Rev 37 105-126
- Abney et al. 1978 J Immunol 120 2041-2049
- Parkhouse et al. 1970 Immunology 18 575-584
- Randall et al. 1992 Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 89 962-966
- Parkhouse et al. 1990 Immunology 69 298-302
- Hombach et al. 1990 Nature 343 760-762