The 1623 Meditation 17 by the English metaphysical poet John Donne was probably inspired by the church bells that tolled to announce death by the plague. Death in this and many other infectious diseases typically follows septic shock, often caused by so-called Gram-negative bacteria. The path that leads from these organisms to septic shock has been under investigation for over a century, and, on page 284 of this issue, Yang et al. report that a cell-surface receptor, Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2), may be part of the long-awaited solution to the puzzle.
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