Immunological Tolerance and Accommodation

Immunological Tolerance and Accommodation provides the latest understanding of the cellular, molecular, and systematic regulation of immunological tolerance, an area that is of fundamental importance in immunology. For one hundred years, immunologists have struggled to understand how the immune system can attack with vigor and destroy foreign cells, microorganisms, and substances, all while sparing the immune individual from inadvertent injury.

Research in various fields of immunology has revealed molecular, cellular, and systemic means by which tolerance and accommodation develop, but no line of research, review article, or published volume has coordinated the various findings and theories that have emerged. This book provides the only comprehensive and unified consideration on immunological tolerance and accommodation.

• Provides the only presentation that integrates molecular, cellular, and systemic mechanisms
• Effectively coordinates both basic and clinical subjects
• Addresses both tolerance and accommodation, providing the best available resource for understanding how autoimmunity and autoimmune diseases are averted in most individuals
• Comprehensive and unified consideration of both tolerance and accommodation

Jeffrey L. Platt, M.D. directs the Transplantaion Biology Program at the University of Michigan where he serves also as Professor of Surgery and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Platt's research probes fundamental questions in transplantation biology and molecular medicine. The questions inlcude how immunity and inflammation cause organs and tissues to acquire resistance to injury, a condition Dr. Platt discovered named accomodation. His research has the mechanisms through which antibodies, complement and other components of blood injure endothelial cells. Dr. Platt's program has also novel advanced replacing organ using xenogenic and engineered organs and tissues. This work has recently led to fundamental discoveries concerning the biological implications of cell fusion and the relationship between immunological recognition and host defense. Dr. Platt's research has led to more than 540 pages, 4 books and 10 patents. Dr. Platt has received numerous awards, including Clinician-Scientist and Established Investigator awards from the AHA has been elected to membershgip in numerous scholarly societies, including the Association of American Physicians and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.