Eva Engvall

Eva Engvall, born 1940, is one of the scientists who invented ELISA in 1971.[1] She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Life

Eva Engvall earned her PhD from the University of Stockholm in 1975.[2] Her postdoctoral work was done at the University of Helsinki and City of Hope National Medical Center in California, where she was subsequently appointed to staff. In 1979, Engvall was recruited to Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, California (then called La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation). From 1993 to 1996, Engvall held joint appointments at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute and as Chairperson of the Department of Developmental Biology at Stockholm University.

Research

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) uses antibodies to detect proteins and other different immunogens. Eva Engvall was one of the two Swedish scientists at Stockholm University (the other was the principal investigator Peter Perlmann) who conceptualized and developed the ELISA technique.[3] Engvall and Perlmann published their first paper on ELISA in 1971 and demonstrated its quantitative value using alkaline phosphatase as the reporter.[4]

Eva Engvall applied the ELISA measurement tool to parasitology [e.g., malaria[5] and trichinosis[6]], microbiology,[7] and oncology.[8][9] At Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, where Engvall was a professor from 1979 to 2005, she developed a form of ELISA, called “two-site” ELISA, that was tailored to using then new monoclonal antibodies.[10] Various forms of ELISA, including two-site ELISA continue to be widely used in clinical medicine, veterinary and agriculture applications.

Engvall subsequently turned her interest to extracellular matrix biochemistry. She discovered the affinity of fibronectin to gelatin (denatured collagen),[11] demonstrating the potential of these two matrix components to form a complex in tissues. She also devised a simple, one-step purification of fibronectin by gelatin affinity chromatography that enabled many advances in fibronectin research. The paper describing these findings has been cited 2,300 times in the literature. Engvall also discovered the second member of the laminin family of matrix proteins, initially named merosin, and showed that mutations in this protein are the cause of the second most common form of muscular dystrophy.[12][13][14][15]

Awards and honors

Perlmann and Engvall were honored for their invention when they received the German scientific award of the "Biochemische Analytik" in 1976, 5 years after they had published their first papers.[16] Engvall received an honorary degree in Medicine from the University of Copenhagen in November 1994. Engvall was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020.[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ Eva Engvall, The Scientist 1995, 9(18):8
  2. ^ Engvall, Eva, ELISA: enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, univ., Diss. Stockholm : Univ.,Stockholm, 1975; LIBRIS record
  3. ^ Lequin, R. M. (2005). "Enzyme immunoassay (EIA)/Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)". Clinical Chemistry. 51 (12): 2415–2418. doi:10.1373/clinchem.2005.051532. PMID 16179424.
  4. ^ Engvall, E.; Perlmann, P. (1971). "Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Quantitative assay of immunoglobulin G". Immunochemistry. 8 (9): 871–874. doi:10.1016/0019-2791(71)90454-x. PMID 5135623.
  5. ^ Voller, A.; Huldt, G.; Thors, C.; Engvall, E. (1975). "New serological test for malaria antibodies". British Medical Journal. 1 (5959): 659–661. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.5959.659. PMC 1672875. PMID 1092412.
  6. ^ Ljungström, I.; Engvall, E.; Ruitenberg, E. J. (1974). "Proceedings: ELISA, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay - a new technique for sero-diagnosis of trichinosis". Parasitology. 69 (2): xxiv. PMID 4419374.
  7. ^ Engvall, E. (1977). "Quantitative enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) in microbiology". Medical Biology. 55 (4): 193–200. PMID 335174.
  8. ^ Seppälä, M.; Rutanen, E. M.; Heikinheimo, M.; Jalanko, H.; Engvall, E. (1978). "Detection of trophoblastic tumour activity by pregnancy-specific beta-1-glycoprotein". International Journal of Cancer. 21 (3): 265–267. doi:10.1002/ijc.2910210303. PMID 631928. S2CID 42537199.
  9. ^ Sipponen, P.; Ruoslahti, E.; Vuento, M.; Engvall, E.; Stenman, U. (1976). "CEA and CEA-like activity in gastric cancer". Acta Hepato-Gastroenterologica. 23 (4): 276–279. PMID 61690.
  10. ^ Uotila, M.; Ruoslahti, E.; Engvall, E. (1981). "Two-site sandwich enzyme immunoassay with monoclonal antibodies to human alpha-fetoprotein". Journal of Immunological Methods. 42 (1): 11–15. doi:10.1016/0022-1759(81)90219-2. PMID 6165775.
  11. ^ Engvall, E.; Ruoslahti, E. (1977). "Binding of soluble form of fibroblast surface protein, fibronectin, to collagen". International Journal of Cancer. 20 (1): 1–5. doi:10.1002/ijc.2910200102. PMID 903179. S2CID 19792028.
  12. ^ Leivo, I.; Engvall, E. (1988). "Merosin, a protein specific for basement membranes of Schwann cells, striated muscle, and trophoblast, is expressed late in nerve and muscle development". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 85 (5): 1544–1548. Bibcode:1988PNAS...85.1544L. doi:10.1073/pnas.85.5.1544. PMC 279809. PMID 3278318.
  13. ^ Xu, H.; Wu, X. R.; Wewer, U. M.; Engvall, E. (1994). "Murine muscular dystrophy caused by a mutation in the laminin alpha 2 (Lama2) gene". Nature Genetics. 8 (3): 297–302. doi:10.1038/ng1194-297. PMID 7874173. S2CID 21549628.
  14. ^ Kuang, W.; Xu, H.; Vachon, P. H.; Liu, L.; Loechel, F.; Wewer, U. M.; Engvall, E. (1998). "Merosin-deficient congenital muscular dystrophy. Partial genetic correction in two mouse models". Journal of Clinical Investigation. 102 (4): 844–852. doi:10.1172/JCI3705. PMC 508948. PMID 9710454. (Erratum: doi:10.1172/JCI3705C1, PMC 528864)
  15. ^ Engvall, E.; Wewer, U. M. (2003). "The new frontier in muscular dystrophy research: Booster genes". FASEB Journal. 17 (12): 1579–1584. doi:10.1096/fj.02-1215rev. PMID 12958164. S2CID 16429800.
  16. ^ "Award Winners". DGKL. Retrieved 2021-12-07.
  17. ^ "AAAS Announces Leading Scientists Elected as 2020 Fellows | American Association for the Advancement of Science". www.aaas.org. Retrieved 2021-12-07.