"The discovery of this new pathway allows the dendritic cell's natural machinery to decide which pieces of the protein are useful to an individual's immune system," says Albert. "We hope that immunotherapy will be available for people with immune systems that don't match common MHC types."
On a historical note, the dendritic cell was discovered at Rockefeller in 1973 by Henry G. Kunkel Professor Ralph M. Steinman, M.D., and the late Zanvil A. Cohn, M.D.
Funding for this work was provided in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the federal government's National Institutes of Health (NIH), and by the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program.
Rockefeller began in 1901 as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the first U.S. biomedical research center. Rockefeller faculty members have made significant achievements, including the discovery that DNA is the carrier of genetic information and the launching of the scientific field of modern cell biology. The university has ties to 19 Nobel laureates, including the president, Torsten N. Wiesel, M.D., who received the prize in 1981. The university recently created six centers to foster collaborations among scientists to pursue investigations of Alzheimer's disease, of biochemistry and structural biology, of human genetics, of immunology and immune diseases, of sensory neurosciences and of the links between physics and biology.
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Contact: Joseph Bonner
runews@rockvax.rockefeller.edu
212-327-7900
Rockefeller University
10-Mar-1998