Immunobiology of Proteins and Peptides VII Unwanted Immune Responses

The articles in this volume represent papers delivered by invited speakers at the 7th International Symposium on the Immunobiology of Proteins and Peptides. In addition, a few of the abstracts submitted by participants were scheduled for minisymposia and some of the authors, whose presentations were judged by the Scientific Council to be of high quality, were invited to submit papers for publication in this volume. This symposium was established in 1976 for the purpose of bring together, once every two or three years, active investigators in the forefront of contemporary immunology, to present their findings and discuss their significance in the light of current concepts and to identify important new directions of investigation. The founding of the symposium was stimulated by the achievement of major breakthroughs will lead to recognition of proteins and peptide. We believed that these breakthroughs will lead to the creation of a new generation of peptide reagents with should have enormous potential in biological, therapeutic, and basic applications. This anticipated explosion has in fact since occurred and many applications of these peptides are now being realized. The seventh symposium focused on immune responses that have undesirable effects on the host, hence we named them unwanted immune responses. Two major aspects of unwanted immune responses were discussed at the symposium: Allergy and Autoimmunity. We believed that these immune reactions may be controlled or manipulated by similar strategies. This volume presents papers on the molecular nature of allergens, IgE-mediated responses and the IgE receptors. The papers on autoimmunity deal with autoimmune antibody and T-cell recognition of self antigens in selected well-characterized autoimmune diseases (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, myasthenia, gravis, systemic lupus erthematosus and autoimmune, type 1 diabetes). Stress proteins, naturally occurring autoantibodies and regulatory autoantibodies are now known to play important roles in autoimmunity. Papers by leading investigators present recent advances in this field. Manipulation of autoimmune responses by synthetic pathogenic autodeterminants provides promising strategies for control of autoimmune diseases whose antigens have been well characterized. The feasibility of this exciting direction is demonstrated here with autoimmune diseases, but should in principle be applicable to allergic responses as well. These and other important questions related to molecular and cellular characterization of allergic and autoimmune responses are discussed in this volume Finally, I should like to express, on behalf of this organization, out gratitude, our gratitude to our sponsors whose generous support made this conference possible.