biology

Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig

Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig rather than just read about it. In short: Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig (20 June 1928 – 1 April 2018) was an Austrian-Brazilian immunologist specializing in the development of malaria vaccines. In a career spanning over 60 years, she was primarily affiliated with New York University (NYU).

Key takeaways

Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig (20 June 1928 – 1 April 2018) was an Austrian-Brazilian immunologist specializing in the development of malaria vaccines. In a career spanning over 60 years, she was primarily affiliated with New York University (NYU). She served as C.V. Starr Professor of Medical and Molecular Parasitology at Langone Medical Center, research professor at the NYU Department of Pathology, and finally professor emerita of Microbiology and Pathology at the NYU Department of Microbiology.

Biography Nussenzweig was born Ruth Sonntag in Vienna, Austria, to a secular Jewish family in which both of her parents were physicians. In 1939, after the Anschluss, the Sonntags fled to São Paulo, Brazil. While attending the University of São Paulo School of Medicine, she became involved in leftist politics and met Victor Nussenzweig, her future husband and lifelong research partner. After receiving her M.D., Nussenzweig moved to Paris for a research fellowship. In 1963, she did further graduate work at the NYU laboratory of immunologist Zoltán Óváry. In 1965, the Nussenzweigs returned to São Paulo, and found that working conditions had become untenable since the 1964 military coup; many of their friends and colleagues had been jailed by the regime, and Victor was singled out for questioning by the school's new military administration. Through the intervention of Baruj Benacerraf, both Nussenzweigs obtained assistant professorships at NYU, and moved permanently to the United States. Nussenzweig returned briefly to Brazil to defend her doctoral thesis, earning her Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo in 1968. Nussenzweig's family includes multiple people who have made significant contributions to research and academia, including husband Victor, professor emeritus at the NYU School of Medicine; son Michel C. Nussenzweig, professor of medicine at The Rockefeller University; daughter Sonia Nussenzweig-Hotimsky, professor of anthropology at the Foundation School of Sociology and Politics in São Paulo; and son Andre Nussenzweig, Distinguished Investigator at the National Institutes of Health.

Research work In 1967, Nussenzweig demonstrated that mice could acquire immunity to the Plasmodium berghei parasite. She did so by exposing the mice to P. berghei sporozoites that had been inactivated by X-ray irradiation.

Major publications Huang, Jing; Li, Xiangming; Coelho-Dos-Reis, Jordana G A; Zhang, Min; Mitchell, Robert; Nogueira, Raquel Tayar; Tsao, Tiffany; Noe, Amy R; Ayala, Ramses; Sahi, Vincent; Gutierrez, Gabriel M; Nussenzweig, Victor; Wilson, James M; Nardin, Elizabeth H; Nussenzweig, Ruth S; Tsuji, Moriya. "Human immune system mice immunized with Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein induce protective human humoral immunity against malaria." Journal of Immunological Methods. 2015 Sep;:42-50 Teixeira, Lais H; Tararam, Cibele A; Lasaro, Marcio O; Camacho, Ariane G A; Ersching, Jonatan; Leal, Monica T; Herrera, Socrates; Bruna-Romero, Oscar; Soares, Irene S; Nussenzweig, Ruth S; Ertl, Hildegund C J; Nussenzweig, Victor; Rodrigues, Mauricio M. "Immunogenicity of a Prime-Boost Vaccine Containing the Circumsporozoite Proteins of Plasmodium vivax in Rodents. Infection and Immunity. 2014 Feb;82(2):793-807 Mishra, Satish; Nussenzweig, Ruth S; Nussenzweig, Victor. "Antibodies to Plasmodium circumsporozoite protein (CSP) inhibit sporozoite's cell traversal activity." Journal of Immunological Methods. 2012 Mar;377(1–2):47-52 Camacho, Ariane Guglielmi Ariza; Teixeira, Lais Helena; Bargieri, Daniel Youssef; Boscardin, Silvia Beatriz; Soares, Irene da Silva; Nussenzweig, Ruth Sonntag; Nussenzweig, Victor; Rodrigues, Mauricio Martins. "TLR5-dependent immunogenicity of a recombinant fusion protein containing an immunodominant epitope of malarial circumsporozoite protein and the FliC flagellin of Salmonella Typhimurium." Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. 2011 Aug;106 Suppl 1:167-171 Mishra, Satish; Rai, Urvashi; Shiratsuchi, Takayuki; Li, Xiangming; Vanloubbeeck, Yannick; Cohen, Joe; Nussenzweig, Ruth S; Winzeler, Elizabeth A; Tsuji, Moriya; Nussenzweig, Victor. "Identification of non-CSP antigens bearing CD8 epitopes in mice immunized with irradiated sporozoites." Vaccine. 2011 Oct 6;29(43):7335-7342

Awards Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, 1985 Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology (Cuba), 1985 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal, 2008 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, 2015 National Order of Scientific Merit (Brazil)

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig

In research: Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1928 births, 2018 deaths, Austrian emigrants to Brazil, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig in simple terms?

Why does Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ruth Sonntag Nussenzweig.