Proceedings of the Conference “Lymphocyte Development, Tolerance and Autoimmunity: Solved and Open Questions”, Held at the Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, on May 12, 2011 (Wrocław, Poland)

Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms of the immunological tolerance and autoimmunity remains a major challenge for researchers and clinicians struggling to free the society from several serious diseases (e.g., diabetes), which result from the disturbance of the regulatory mechanisms maintaining properly functioning immune system. Often these disturbances have their origin in impaired lymphocyte development, therefore, the prospect for the progress in fighting autoimmune diseases or breaking tolerance to the tumors is very much dependent on the better understanding of the mechanisms of lymphocyte development and their functional diversification. In view of the breathtaking progress in these areas of research and a daunting number of new publications appearing everyday, the direct contact and first hand information from leading experts play a very important role in catching up with what is going on at the cutting edge of current studies. Considering above, on 12 May 2011, 1-day conference was organized in the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy under the auspices of the Polish Academy of Sciences with the participation of renowned immunologists whose contribution to uncovering the intricacies of lymphocyte development and understanding the mechanisms of tolerance and autoimmunity is known worldwide. Abstracts of their presentations are published below in this issue of ‘‘Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis.’’ The leitmotiv of the conference: ‘‘solved and open questions’’ was meant to emphasize, that the effort to understand the function of the immune, like any other biological systems represents the continuous, never ending asymptotic process where the answer to the given question is as good as the number of new questions it generates. As the scientist ‘‘about to retire’’ and a chairman of the organizing committee of this conference, who spent 40 years studying the development and heterogeneity of T lymphocytes as well as the mechanisms of their selection, I was asked to introduce the subject of the conference from my personal ‘‘pre-historical’’ perspective in which the conference speakers played a prominent role. Below is my brief and simplified account of the research, in which I was fortunate to participate and which by solving old and opening new questions contributed to the better understanding of the functional heterogeneity of mature T cells as well as of the basic cellular mechanisms responsible for the generation of self MHC restricted and self tolerant repertoire of antigen-specific receptors of T lymphocytes. In early 1970s when I learned about T and B lymphocytes, little was known about their development, physiological function of MHC antigens responsible for the graft rejection was unknown (Klein and Shreffler 1972) and except the information that T but not B cells need the thymus (Miller 1961; Warner and Szenberg 1962), its role was very unclear. One of the important questions asked at that time—however trivial it may look from today’s perspective—was, whether mature T cells known to kill virus infected cells and to help B cells to make antibodies represent one type of a bi-functional cell or belong to two functionally different populations. As a post doc I was at that time in Dr. Lloyd Old’s laboratory at the P. Kisielow (&) Department of Tumor Immunology, Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, R. Weigla 12, 53-114 Wroclaw, Poland e-mail: kisielow@iitd.pan.wroc.pl Arch. Immunol. Ther. Exp. (2011) 59:327–330 DOI 10.1007/s00005-011-0142-1