Entitled, Serendipity and the Journey to a Human Autoantigen, the lecture was presented by Professor David Salant, Professor of Medicine and Chief of Nephrology at Boston University Medical Centre.
Professor Salant addressed one of the persistent conundrums of modern medicine: autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus erythematosus, rheumatic carditis and various forms of nephritis, where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys healthy body tissue by mistake. Identifying the target in the organs under attack has been considered the ‘holy grail’ of medical science.
Professor Salant, who graduated from the Wits Medical School in 1969, described his own journey in the search of the protein that is the target of a common form of autoimmune kidney disease. The discovery has yielded a simple means to diagnose the condition and may lead to more specific treatment than cortisone and other immune suppressant drugs commonly used today.
Curator at the museum – which has hosted the memorial annually since 1967 – Rochelle Keene said, “The AJ Orenstein Memorial Lecture is one of the most important and longstanding talks within the faculty.”
The inaugural lecture was held in 1962, entitled Mine eyes have seen, and delivered by Major General Orenstein. In 1974, the name was changed to the AJ Orenstein Memorial lecture to honour the part he played in the establishment of the medical services in the mining industry.
