[Rutgers University] Institute of Microbiology Annual Report: July 1, 1955 - June 30, 1956

After his retirement from Columbia University in 1954, Heidelberger spent nine years as visiting investigator and honorary professor at the Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers. This report summarized his ongoing research into the polysaccharide antigens of pneumococcus and into cross reactions, the interaction of an antigen with an antibody formed against a different antigen with which the first antigen shares closely related determinants. Antigenic determinants, today often called epitopes, are sites on the surface of antigen molecules to which a single, specific antibody binds.