Introduction
Dr. Guillermo Dighiero is best known for his work in the French CLL trials and for his insight into the biology of the CLL BCR repertoire before it was widely appreciated. He was the first to quantify the low levels of surface immunoglobulin on the CLL lymphocyte compared to normal B cells. He was involved in the initial Binet clinical staging system based on multivariant survival analysis. The analysis of the B cell repertoire in fetal liver, cord blood and CLL patients led to the early recognition of skewed distributions of mutated and unmutated Ig subsets.
Dr. Dighiero received his medical degree from the University of Montevideo in 1969, and received his PhD from the University of Paris in 1978. For some time, he was the Top Degree Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and head of the Department of Physiopathology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Currently, he is the head of the Pasteur Institute of Montevideo and the Ambassador of Uruguay to France.