2nd Conference of the Robert A. Good immunology society primary immune deficiencies and immune reconstitution Harvard Medical Boston, November 16th, 17th.

摘要

In the 1950s, Robert A. Good and his team made a series of seminal discoveries that helped to identify the distinct-yet essential-role that the thymus and equivalents of the bursa of Fabricius in chicken have for development of cell-mediated and humoral immunity in many species, including man [1]. Dr. Good's group had performed a series of experiments in rabbits and mice that showed the neonatal thymectomy affects not only the development of cell-mediated and anti-tumor immunity, but also the ability to mount vigorous antibody responses to what we now define T-dependent antigens [2]. Similar data on the critical role of the thymus were shared by other groups at a conference that Dr. Good organized in Minneapolis in 1962 [3]. DiGeorge syndrome was soon thereafter identified as the pro-totypic condition in humans in which impaired thymus development is associated with an increased occurrence of infections of viral and fungal origin, and reduced antibody production in spite of preserved immunoglobulin serum levels[4].