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Eva Klein ( Eva Fischer; 22 January 1925 – 19 January 2025) was a Hungarian-Swedish scientist. Klein worked at the Karolinska Institute since leaving Hungary in 1947. She is regarded as a founder of cancer immunology.
Her life and career choices as a young Jewish woman were constrained by discrimination, and she survived the late stages of German occupation in hiding. A medical doctor with a PhD in biology, she worked in cancer immunology and virology.
In the 1960s, she led the discovery of natural killer cells and developing Burkitt's lymphoma cell lines. She pursued her own lines of work as well as working closely with her husband, George Klein.
In 1975, the U.S. Cancer Research Institute established the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology. The inaugural award was shared by 16 scientists considered to be "founders of cancer immunology", including Eva and George Klein. Their award noted their "discoveries of tumor-specific antigens in the mouse, to the most comprehensive immunological analysis of a human cancer, Burkitt's lymphoma".
Fischer attended medical school at the University of Budapest, and in 1944–45 she and several members of her family survived by hiding at the Histology Institute of the University of Budapest. They were helped by János Szirmai, including forging documents. Szirmai was honored as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Fischer broke from her medical studies to act in the theater, but returned to medicine.
Eva married another medical student George Klein, leaving Hungary to live in Sweden in 1947. She completed her medical degree at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden in 1955.
In addition, Klein was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (in 1993) and the Ohio State University (in 2003).
Eva Klein published over 500 papers, and served as an editor of the journal, Seminars in Cancer Biology.
Post-retirement, Klein continued to support students and pursued her research interests as emerita Professor with her own research Group. Another of her interests was translating Hungarian poetry into Swedish. She gave an interview to Swedish radio in November 2015, saying that continuing to work kept her young at 90.
The Kleins undertook wide-ranging pioneering work, jointly and separately, in cancer immunology and how cancer cells' malignant behavior can be suppressed by genes in normal cells.
Klein died on 19 January 2025, three days shy of her 100th birthday. Életének 99. évében, 3 nappal 100. születésnapja előtt elhunyt Klein Éva, az MTA külső tagja. Retrieved 21 January 2025 (in Hungarian).
In the 1970s, the Kleins' research groups were investigating whether there was an interaction between and antitumor response. Eva pursued an area she considered critical, while others did not. She jointly supervised three students (Rolf Kiessling, Hugh Pross and Mikael Jondal) with another Professor (Hans Wigzell), leading to the discovery of a unique type of lymphocyte (white cell) responsible for spontaneous cytotoxicity - the ability to "kill" tumor cells or cells infected with viruses. Klein named them "natural killer cells".
Klein had a longstanding interest in virology as well as immunology, studying the role of the Epstein–Barr virus in Burkitt's lymphoma.
Klein became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1987 and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1993. In 2013, she was elected to fellowship of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy.
In 2005, the year of the Kleins' 80th birthdays, scientists at the Karolinska Institute established the Georg and Eva Klein Foundation, including a major donation from the Cancer Research Institute.
Klein was awarded the Karolinska's Silver Medal for Medical Research in 2010.
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