Joshua Chan wrote:
>> Could anyone tell me what's "Danger Model" in immunology.
This topic has come up now and then since polly matzinger first wrote the
article for the annual review of immuology. this is the best place to get
info on the model. basically it is inresponse to the self--nonself model
that has been the accepted paradigm in immunology since burnet said "i will
always regard the difference between self and non-self as crucial to any
theory of immunology". simply put the old guard and most of the new guard
belives that the immune system learns what self is and therefore can
recognize anything that is not self (ie distinguish between self-antigens and
foreign antigens) and respond to it. The danger model starts from the
presumption that the immune system learns to distinguish dangerous from
safe irrespective of whether the danger is self-encoded. these are VERY
simplistic statements and the best place to get the gist is to read
matzinger and fuchs and then read the follow up by melvin cohn (i
think) that argue aganinst the dange theory.
markH
