If the body were a country, the immune system would be its national guard. And it couldn't ask for a better homeland defense. The immune system is remarkably effective at protecting us against the millions of pathogens that threaten us daily. We have only to see what happens when our immune system is compromised – from disease, for instance, or by immunosuppressant drugs following organ transplantation – to understand the power it wields when it's operating at full strength.

There is no doubt that we have made tremendous progress in understanding how the immune system responds to disease, enabling us to develop vaccines for so many of the illnesses, like polio, smallpox, and whooping cough, that once haunted us.

But infectious diseases we thought we had conquered, like tuberculosis, are returning in new guises that resist standard treatments. And those that have emerged in the past few decades and the more recent past, like toxic shock syndrome, drug-resistant staphylococcus, and avian flu, present dangerous new challenges. More»

• The Case for Human Immune Monitoring, Dr. Mark Davis

Presentations given at the ITI Retreat on March 11-12, 2007:

• Dendritic Cells, Edgar G. Engleman, MD
• Immortal Cell Line Liver Assist Device: Promise for the Future, Emmet B. Keeffe, MD
• Life and Death of EBV – associated B Cell Lymphomas: Opportunities for Novel Therapeutics, Olivia Martinez, MD
• Overview of Utz Lab, PJ Utz, MD

Many lives are lost each year because of a chronic shortage of organ donors. The only way to be sure that your desire to be an organ donor is recognized in time to help save a life is to register with the California Donor Registry
It's simple - please register!