Miracles of the immune system discussed at the 2nd European Congress of Immunology

Sep 10 2009

"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.

Over 200 years ago, immunology started out with the introduction of one of the most successful medical therapies: vaccination. Smallpox vaccination made it possible to eventually eradicate smallpox. Even today, the principle of vaccination continues to be one of the most successful medical therapy strategies. Just recently, Harald zur Hausen, who will hold the opening lecture at the congress, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the development of a vaccine against viruses which can cause cervical cancer. Immunology plays a role not only in infections, but also in a whole number of diseases which might not have much in common at first glance. However, it is always the immune system which is the cause or the driving force of the disease process. Such diseases include allergies, transplant rejections, inflammatory diabetes, gastrointestinal inflammation and, finally, a number of rheumatic diseases. More than half of the population in Germany suffers from one of these wide-spread diseases.

Over the past decades, immunology has helped to define new treatment strategies, so that today most of these patients can be treated medically to such an extent that the disease does not progress any further. "We owe this to immunology. But it also shows that we urgently need to continue immunological research," says Radbruch."Because we still cannot cure most of these diseases. We need new methods of curing these diseases, which will be developed on the basis of a better understanding of the immune system. The European Congress of Immunology 2009 in Berlin will set new standards for this."