The immune system has long been recognized for its importance in eliminating pathogens.
Recently, it has become appreciated for additional distinct roles in normal tissue biology …

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2011 to Jules Hoffmann, Bruce Beutler, and
the late Ralph Steinman recognizes accomplishments in understanding and unifying the two …

The immune system protects from infections primarily by detecting and eliminating the
invading pathogens; however, the host organism can also protect itself from infectious …

Immunology, as laid down in textbooks and reviews, reflects 150 years of intense research
about protection against infectious disease and responses to chemically defined antigens …

A leading figure in immunology takes readers inside the remarkably powerful human
immune system. Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL The …

Innate immunity has been considered only to provide rapid, incomplete antimicrobial host
defense until the slower, more definitive acquired immune response develops. However …

Background Our current understanding of immunity began in the 1890s with the recognition
that microbes caused infectious diseases. Those discoveries were coupled to dramatic …

The immune system responds in a regulated fashion to microbes and eliminates them, but it
does not respond to self-antigens. Several regulatory mechanisms function to terminate …

In recent years the molecular basis of antigen recognition by T cells has been unraveled and
the various pathways that control T cell activation and functional specialization have been …

58 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN OCTOBER 2006 tem cells can mount self-attacks on a wide
variety of tissues. The risk appears to hold true in humans, too, because autoreactive …