| Description | C Goodnow has illuminated the mechanism of immunological self-tolerance through innovative integration of mouse molecular genetics with cellular immunology. His discoveries have changed our concepts of how self-tolerance is acquired, by revealing that self-reactive lymphocytes are controlled by a series of mechanisms serving as checkpoints at each step along the process of antibody formation. He has elucidated how these checkpoints achieve self-nonself discrimination, through an ability of antigen receptors to switch between signalling lymphocyte proliferation or triggering tolerance responses via qualititative changes in the intracellular second messenters elicited. |