In article <87ugaa$9qd$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,
Jamie Cunliffe <cunlij at my-deja.com> wrote:
>>hunting system can be interpreted as a mess (other-than-healthy-self)
>seeking system. You might say this is just semantics BUT it does stop
One major goal of gene therapy is to minimize damage; vectors are designed
to cause as little tissue damage as possible, whether using
replication-incompetent vectors or DNA itself.
One major obstacle to gene therapy remains the immune response to the
vectors or to the therapeutic protein itself. This suggests that the
immune response does not require particularly serious damage to induce a
response.
Similarly, DNA vaccines can be injected intravenously, using
tissue-specific promoters, and induce a response at a site distal to the
injection, so that even the injection trauma is presumably not essential
for the response.
As I've said ad nauseum, trying to summarize the immune system into a
25-word-or-less advertising jingle is foolish, and complaining that one
advertising jingle or another doesn't accurately explain the immune system
is angels-on-pinheads time.
Ian
--
Ian York (iayork at panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
