Frank Dixon, whose studies of how misdirected responses by the immune system can cause diseases that damage the kidneys and other organs won him an Albert Lasker Award in 1975, died Feb. 8 at his home in San Diego of complications from aortic stenosis. He was 87.
Dixon was born in St. Paul and grew up in Mankato, Minn. In 1943, after earning his bachelor's and medical degrees from the University of Minnesota, he served as a Navy lieutenant.
In 1961, Dixon, an immunologist and pathologist, moved to the Scripps Clinic in the La Jolla section of San Diego. There he helped to found the Scripps Research Institute, a private biomedical research center, which he directed until retiring in 1987. He served on the board of directors of Medtronic from 1987 into the 1990s.
NEW YORK TIMES
