This paper reviews the developments that have occurred in the field of human genetics of
infectious diseases from the second half of the 20th century onward. In particular, it stresses …

The hypothesis that inborn errors of immunity underlie infectious diseases is gaining
experimental support. However, the apparent modes of inheritance of predisposition or …

Until the mid-nineteenth century, life expectancy at birth averaged 20 years worldwide,
owing mostly to childhood fevers. The germ theory of diseases then gradually overcame the …

The observation that only a fraction of individuals infected by infectious agents develop
clinical disease raises fundamental questions about the actual pathogenesis of infectious …

Since the early 1950s, the dominant paradigm in the human genetics of infectious diseases
postulates that rare monogenic immunodeficiencies confer vulnerability to multiple infectious …

It was first demonstrated in the late nineteenth century that human deaths from fever were
typically due to infections. As the germ theory gained ground, it replaced the old, unproven …

The key problem in human infectious diseases was posed at the turn of the 20th century:
their pathogenesis. For almost any given virus, bacterium, fungus, or parasite, life …

For almost any given human-tropic virus, bacterium, fungus, or parasite, the clinical outcome
of primary infection is enormously variable, ranging from asymptomatic to lethal infection …

Multicellular eukaryotes emerged late in evolution from an ocean of viruses, bacteria,
archaea, and unicellular eukaryotes. These macroorganisms are exposed to and infected by …

Mutations in human genes involved in immunity are increasingly recognised. Most are
associated with conventional primary immunodeficiencies, which confer Mendelian …