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Jan Vilček

Slovak immunologist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ3161779 ↗
Source-derived summary

Jan T. Vilček (born June 17, 1933) is a Slovak-American biomedical scientist, educator, inventor and philanthropist. He is a professor in the department of microbiology at the New York University School of Medicine, and chairman and CEO of The Vilcek Foundation.

Vilček received his M.D. degree from Comenius University Medical School in Bratislava in 1957; and his Ph.D. in Virology from the Institute of Virology, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, in 1962.

In 1964, Vilček with his wife Marica defected from Communist Czechoslovakia during a three-day visit to Vienna. In 1965, the Vilčeks immigrated to the United States, and have since lived in New York City. Vilček devoted his scientific career to studies of soluble mediators that regulate the immune system (cytokines), including interferon and tumor necrosis factor (TNF).

Early years

Vilček was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, to a middle class secular Jewish family. His mother, Friderika Fischer, was born to a German-speaking family in Budapest, Hungary. She moved with her family to Bratislava where she finished medical school, married Jan's father, Julius Vilček, and became an ophthalmologist. Jan grew up speaking three languages (Slovak, German and Hungarian).

Editorial summary

“Jan Vilček” enters the record as slovak immunologist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vilček, Slovak and immunologist can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1933, 1957, 1962, 1964—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1933-06-17. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Vilček, Slovak and immunologist.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Jan Vilček” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Vilček, Slovak and immunologist provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3161779. VIAF identifies the subject as 108175507. The Library of Congress control number is n79082188. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1933, 1957, 1962 and 1964.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Jan Vilček” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.