Karl Erik Hellström

Dr. Hellström received his M.D.
and Ph.D.
degrees from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, initially working in the area of tumor biology with an emphasis on immunogenetics.
As a student of George Klein, he was a member of the team that showed, for the first time, a tumor-destructive immune response to an animal's own autologous tumor.
After being recruited to the faculty of the University of Washington Medical School in 1966, Karl Erik Hellström and his wife, Dr. Ingegerd Hellström became internationally known after they reported that there is a T-lymphocyte-mediated immune response to human tumors, a discovery that opened new avenues for research and development of cancer therapy.