Eva Klein, MD, PhD, FAACR, professor emerita of tumor biology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and a pioneer in cancer immunology and virology, died January 19, 2025, at the age of 99.
Born to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, in 1925, Klein (née Fischer) hid from the Nazis during the German occupation of Hungary. She attended medical school at the University of Budapest and met her future husband, Georg Klein, also a medical student. They married just before Georg left Hungary to take up a position at the Karolinska Institute. Eva was able to leave Hungary in 1948 and joined Georg at Karolinska, becoming an assistant professor. She received her medical degree in 1953 and her doctorate in 1955, and she was appointed full professor in 1969. The Kleins established the Department of Tumor Biology at Karolinska, where they collaborated to make groundbreaking discoveries in immunology that established the foundations of modern cancer immunotherapy. Eva was named vice director in 1970.
In 1975, Klein and two colleagues published a landmark paper describing their study of “natural killer” (NK) cells, which have an important role in protecting humans against viruses and other pathogens. She also led discoveries in the role of the Epstein-Barr virus in Burkitt’s lymphoma and studied cancer immunology and how genes in normal cells can suppress cancer cell malignant behavior. An AACR member since 1961, Klein was a member of AACR Women in Cancer Research and served as an Associate Editor for the journal Cancer Research from 1981-1985. She was a member of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute and was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1987 and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1993. Klein was inducted as a member of the inaugural class of Fellows of the AACR Academy in 2013.
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Eva with her resilience even in her later years, have been source of inspiration from the very first time we met, first in virology summer school in Krete and then during my PhD days at Karolinska.