Oral History Project: William E. Paul, MD-Interview with William E. Paul, M.D.

Video Transcription

Video Summary

Dr. William E. “Bill” Paul recounts his family background—his father immigrating from Russia to Brooklyn and running an auto repair shop, and his mother’s family including several prominent scientists. Though expected to pursue medicine as the oldest son, Paul was drawn to the scientific side of medicine and, after internship and residency in Boston, came to NIH in 1962 as a Public Health Service officer to fulfill military obligations. There he helped develop the first radioimmunoassay for thyroid-stimulating hormone and became convinced immunology was his future.<br /><br />Seeking top training, he joined Baruj Benacerraf at NYU in 1964, an experience Paul credits as formative. In 1968 he followed Benacerraf to NIAID’s Laboratory of Immunology; when Benacerraf left for Harvard in 1970, Paul, at 34, became chief—a role he held for decades while building the lab into a major center.<br /><br />Paul highlights key scientific contributions: early work clarifying T-cell specificity and “histocompatibility restriction” linking immune response genes to MHC; defining types of thymus-independent antigens and championing membrane immunoglobulin as a true B-cell receptor; enabling robust mouse T-cell culture; and, with Maureen Howard, discovering IL-4, central to IgE production and allergic inflammation, and helping establish Th1/Th2 differentiation methods. He also describes mentoring influential scientists (e.g., Charlie Janeway, Mark Davis, Laurie Glimcher).<br /><br />Beyond the lab, Paul led NIH’s Office of AIDS Research in the 1990s, coordinating national HIV research strategy and accelerating vaccine efforts, including creation of an HIV vaccine center. He reflects on his presidency and service in the American Association of Immunologists, emphasizing the annual meeting, The Journal of Immunology, and advocacy for the field, and concludes immunology remains “endlessly fascinating,” especially as systems biology advances.

Asset Caption

William Erwin Paul (1936–2015) was chief of the Laboratory of Immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, chief of the Cytokine Biology Unit at the Laboratory of Immunology, and a National Institutes of Health Distinguished Investigator. Dr. Paul was president of The American Association of Immunologists from 1986 to 1987 and served on the AAI Council from 1981 to 1986. He was awarded the AAI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.

Keywords

William E. Paul

NIH

NIAID Laboratory of Immunology

radioimmunoassay

thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH)

Baruj Benacerraf

T-cell specificity

histocompatibility restriction

major histocompatibility complex (MHC)

immune response genes

thymus-independent antigens

B-cell receptor (membrane immunoglobulin)

interleukin-4 (IL-4)

Th1/Th2 differentiation

Office of AIDS Research (OAR)