Fritz H. Bach died in his home in Manchester-by-the-Sea on August 14, 2011 after a long illness. Bach, the Lewis Thomas Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, was 77.
Born in Vienna, Bach graduated from Harvard College in 1955, earned a medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1960 and spent the early part of his career at the universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1992 he returned to HMS and, three years later, was named the Lewis Thomas Professor in the Department of Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he directed the Immunobiology Research Center.
Bach was best known for developing a test for tissue compatibility between donors and recipients for organ and bone marrow transplantation called the mixed lymphocyte culture, or MLC. At the University of Wisconsin, he led a team that performed the first successful matched human bone marrow transplant at the same time that his Minnesota colleague, Robert A. Good, performed a similar procedure, also using the MLC. Dr. Bach described the human leukocyte antigen Class II locus and its antigens, part of the major histocompatibility complex of the immune system, and made seminal discoveries in the immunogenetics of T cell immune responses.
At HMS, Bach concentrated on the problem of vascular rejection in the use of animal organs for transplants. His observations helped define new lines of investigation pursued in laboratories worldwide. Recognizing the importance of genes that protect against stress and disease, Dr. Bach was a pioneer in describing their role and application to clinical diseases and inflammation. His many awards included the 1998 Medawar Prize of the Transplantation Society.
“Fritz was a brilliant visionary with a uniquely innovative and highly creative approach to immunobiology research,” said Douglas W. Hanto, Bach’s successor at BIDMC as the Lewis Thomas Professor of Surgery. “His enthusiasm for inquiry and discovery was infectious, and you couldn’t help but be swept up in his excitement for science, and for life. In that regard he was like Lewis Thomas, whom he greatly admired.”
Bach was married, first to Marilyn Lee Brenner and then to Jeanne Elizabeth Gose, and is survived by them, six children and four grandchildren. A memorial service was held, and the BIDMC Department of Surgery plans a symposium to honor him in 2012. In lieu of flowers and gifts, the family requests that donations go to Amnesty International, UNICEF or Médicins sans Frontières.
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