PubMed · 6996459
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1980. Philip Levine: Dedication.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6996459/
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Some of the problems caused by malaria, which places a huge roadblock in front of economic progress in the Third World, may be solved by a new vaccine created by Dr. Manuel Patarroyo, a Columbian physician and researcher. "Imagine how things would be if Canadians had malaria," he says. "Episodes last 10 days, then there are 10 days of recovering. This leaves only 10 days each month in which to do some productive work. Then imagine killing the population of Toronto each year, and you can see the huge toll in terms of the number of yearly deaths globally from malaria." His discovery also raises the issue of "intellectual racism" because of criticism of Patarroyo's methods by Western scientists. Patarroyo, meanwhile, turned down a $60-million offer for his vaccine, and instead donated the patent to the World Health Organization.
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This essay is a highly personalized account of some of the important conceptual contributions to immunology. I have asked myself, "What were the ideas that caught my attention and how and by whom were they presented?" I have learned that most of what immunologists have called concepts deal with too small a slice of the subject. They are essentially inductive extrapolations from one experiment to a possible next step. Historically, these extrapolations extended over too narrow a chasm to account for the information available at the time. The result was that an extrapolation from one misleading observation could dominate and distort, for a significant time, the course of the field. It is also why there has been an inverse relationship between the clarity of a theory and its ease of acceptance by immunologists. Looking to the past, I have used two areas to illustrate the role of conceptualization: the self-nonself discrimination and the origin of the humoral repertoire. To illustrate all of this I have chosen as a cast of characters the founding fathers of immunology as we know it today. I hope that by taking this look into the rear view mirror our efforts will be guided in more productive ways. The take-home lesson is that we need to widen our horizon constantly to make more general concepts that then render the manipulation of the immune system more useful.