Jan Klein

Jan Klein is a Czech-American immunologist, best known for his work on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). He was born in 1936 in Stemplovec, Opava, Czech Republic. He graduated from the Charles University at Prague, in 1955, and received his M.S. (Magna Cum Laude) in Botany from the same school in 1958. He was a teacher at the Neruda High School in Prague from 1958 to 1961. He received his Ph.D. in Genetics from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1965, and moved to Stanford University as a postdoctoral fellow the same year. He became assistant professor in 1969, and associate professor in 1973 at the University of Michigan. He assumed the position of professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 1975. From 1977 to his retirement in 2004, he was the Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für Biologie at Tübingen, Germany. He is currently a Frances R. and Helen M. Pentz Visiting Professor of Science and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Pennsylvania State University.