LATVIAN IMMUNOLOGIST AINA MUCENIECE

Aina Muceniece (23 March 1924 – 14 February 2010) was a Latvian immunologist, and inventor of RIGVIR. She discovered that an echovirus might be a useful treatment for melanoma.

Aina Muceniece was born in Katlakalns, Latvia. She graduated in 1941 from the School of Commerce in Riga and worked as a nurse during World War II. After the war, she studied medicine at the Latvian State University, where she earned a doctor’s degree in 1974.

Muceniece’s scientific career began at the Institute of Microbiology, Latvian Academy of Sciences, first as a senior laboratory assistanant, later as a senior research associate. Muceniece’s laboratory started to study enteroviruses in the 1960s, and the research led to the identification of an echovirus that had possible use to treat melanoma, which became RIGVIR (Riga Virus). Production and research were discontinued in 1999 and restarted after national registration in Latvia in 2004.

Muceniece also worked at the Pauls Stradiņš Hospital and the National Oncology Center as an immunology consultant from 1977 to 2003.

In 2002 she was made an honorary member of the Latvian Association of Oncologists. In 2005 Muceniece received the Cross of Recognition, which is awarded to Latvians and foreigners for special services in public, cultural, science, sports, and education, for meritorious service to the Republic of Latvia.

Before she died in 2010 at the age of 85, she published 190 papers and three monographs.