Alain de Weck
Alain L. de Weck (July 26, 1928 – April 8, 2013) was a Swiss immunologist and allergist. He is best known for his work on drug allergies and for developing tests that diagnose them in the lab. He also described Cheese Washer’s Disease, a form of farmer’s lung.
He founded the Institute of Clinical Immunology at the University of Bern and led it from 1971 to 1993. He published over 600 papers and held patents that led to allergy tests and related services. He served as president of major international groups, including the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS, 1983–1986) and the International Association for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (IAACI, now the World Allergy Organization, 1985–1988).
De Weck helped start the Centre Medical des Grand-Places (CMG), which developed the TOP SCREEN allergy tests. CMG was bought by Heska in 1997. After Bern, he continued research at the University of Navarra in Spain and wrote about science versus pseudo-science, GMOs, and health care policy.
He grew up in Crans-Montana, studied at Collège Calvin in Geneva, and earned his medical degree from the University of Geneva in 1953. He trained in Paris and studied inflammation and contact dermatitis early in his career. From 1958 to 1960 he was a research fellow in St. Louis, where he helped develop penicilloyl-polylysine (PPL) for penicillin allergy testing. He became a professor at the University of Bern, building a leading program in clinical immunology and allergy and contributing to hapten research, allergen standardization, IgE biology, and new diagnostic methods such as in‑vitro assays and flow cytometry. His clinical work included allergy testing, transplant-related HLA typing, and immune testing for HIV and autoimmune diseases.
De Weck received the Robert Koch Prize in 1972 and the Clemens von Pirquet Medal in 1990, and he was a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine. He passed away in Fribourg, Switzerland, at the age of 84.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:22 (CET).