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The human model: a genetic dissection of immunity to infection in natural conditions

Jean-Laurent Casanova1, Laurent Abel

  • 1Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases, University of Paris René Descartes-INSERM U550, Necker Medical School, 156 Rue de Vaugirard, 75015 Paris, France, EU. casanova@necker.fr

Nature Reviews. Immunology
|January 6, 2004
PubMed

Tremendous progress has been achieved in developmental, cellular and molecular immunology in the past 20 years, largely due to studies using the mouse as a model system and the arrival of molecular genetics. Immunology is now faced with a difficult challenge. What are the functions of the individual cells and molecules in achieving immunity to infection? Renewed interest in animal models of disease has provided considerable insight in this area, but such models of infection suffer from the inherent limitation of being experimental. In humans, the complex host-environment interaction occurs in natural, as opposed to experimental, conditions. The human model is therefore an indispensable complement to animal models, as it allows an observational genetic dissection of immunity to infection.

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