Eva Klein

Eva Klein (née Eva Fischer; 22 January 1925 – 19 January 2025) was a Hungarian-Swedish scientist. Klein worked at the Karolinska Institute since leaving Hungary in 1947. She is regarded as a founder of cancer immunology. Her life and career choices as a young Jewish woman were constrained by discrimination, and she survived the late stages of German occupation in hiding. A medical doctor with a PhD in biology, she worked in cancer immunology and virology. In the 1960s, she led the discovery of natural killer cells and developing Burkitt's lymphoma cell lines. She pursued her own lines of work as well as working closely with her husband, George Klein. In 1975, the U.S. Cancer Research Institute established the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology. The inaugural award was shared by 16 scientists considered to be "founders of cancer immunology", including Eva and George Klein. Their award noted their "discoveries of tumor-specific antigens in the mouse, to the most comprehensive immunological analysis of a human cancer, Burkitt's lymphoma".