"I think it will not surprise you if I say that the immune system is one of our most important organ systems. Its relevance is obvious if only for the fact that it has been reinvented several times throughout the evolution of life," says Professor Andreas Radbruch, President of the German Society of Immunology and Director of the Deutsches Rheuma-Forschungszentrum, Berlin. He lectured about the miracle of our immune system at the Opening Press Conference of the 2nd European Congress of Immunology.
Even the simplest life forms - viruses, bacteria and protozoans - have recognizing systems by which they can discriminate "self" from "non-self". The immune system of vertebrates, i.e. the human immune system, too, is particularly effective, because it consists of two parts which supplement each other perfectly. The "innate immune system" is able to recognize dangerous substances and pathogens as such, but it is not good at discriminating them. The "adaptive immune system" very specifically identifies individual pathogens that the innate immune system points out to it. It then responds by adapted defense mechanisms and adds the identified substances to the "immunological memory".
Immunologists are trying to understand the cells and genes that make up these two immune systems and their dialogue. "We think we are getting better at it. But we've often been surprised and some things that we thought we had understood are suddenly being questioned all over again. At the European Congress of Immunology in Berlin, we will once again push the limits forward a bit. A key motivation driving us is the fact that our research results may directly be of great medical significance," says Radbruch.