Into the breach

摘要

In the autumn of 2005, Alan Irvine, a dermatologist at Trinity College Dublin, noticed something unusual about a cohort of patients with ichthyosis vulgaris - a dry, scaly skin disease. Irvine had been working with geneticist Irwin McLean at University of Dundee, UK, whose team had recently identified two mutations in the gene behind the inherited disorder. But Irvine's new observation pointed to something much bigger: a radical new explanation of what causes allergic diseases.