blood by liver sinusoidal endothelium (LSEC) Anderson serendipitously observed that an astonishingly high fraction of the body's FcγRIIb was expressed in the sinusoidal endothelium of the liver. This receptor earlier had been studied only as an inhibitory molecule of the immune system. Rigorously exploring this observation, his laboratory found that fully 70% of the total body content of FcγRIIb is expressed in the sinusoidal endothelium; that FcγRIIb is unassociated with the FcRγ chain and thus likely does not convey inhibitory signals; that it mediates the uptake and ultimate degradation of small pinocytosable immune complexes. His lab demonstrated in mice that HIV particles, in the absence of antibody opsonization, are taken up from blood and degraded by the liver sinusoidal endothelium at a rate of 100 million per minute. These cells (LSEC) take up other viruses and other particles in their capacity as the body's garbage dump, clearing small particles from the blood stream. The distinctive features of Anderson's career have been the linearity of his scientific pursuit; the aggressive borrowing of technical solutions; a pursuit of basic and not translational questions; the publication of only model-changing work; collaborations only with helpers; a focus on hypothesis-denying experiments; an avoidance of review- and chapter-writing; no commercial backing but 40 years of continuous NIH R01 support. Honors Leukemia Society of America Special Fellow 1975-77 Research Career Development Award, NIAID 1979-84 Medical Biochemistry Study Section, DRG, NIH 1987-91 University Distinguished Scholar Award, OSU 1994 References External links Anderson Lab American immunologists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Ohio State University faculty Brown University alumni University of Arizona alumni University of Chicago alumni University of Rochester faculty 20th-century American physicians