Microchimerism – What’s in a word?

Mike Magee According to some estimates, a medical student learns upwards of 15,000 new words during the four years of training. But the scope of the language challenge extends well beyond these tightly conscripted years since discoveries, and accompanying language to describe and label those new findings, accumulate throughout the entire span on one’s […]

Are You Ready For The Convergence of Metaphysics, Immunology, and Epigenetics?

Mike Magee Stanford neuroscientist, David Eagleman, reminded us this week that “A coherent explanation of consciousness eludes modern science.” That was his opening line in the New York Times book review of Michael Pollan’s latest effort, “A World Appears.” In it, Pollan asks innocently, “How does the brain generate a unified sense of self?” According […]

The Blurry Line Between Tolerance and Rejection

Mike Magee Are you for us, or against us? Will you tolerate border incursions, or deter, destroy, and extract? Will you bend (and how far) to accommodate your former enemies and betray your friends? These questions may sound provocative and political, but they have nothing to do with our current leadership disarray in the U.S. […]

Is “Self vs. Non-Self” in Immunology as iron-clad as we thought?

Mike Magee In 1872, English mathematician and sometimes poet, Augustus de Morgan, wrote this catching rhyme: “Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.” This truism about competition among species for access to nutrition and reproduction could have come in handy to […]

The Birth of Immunology

Mike Magee The field of Immunology is little more than a half-century old and still shrouded in a remarkable degree of mystery. Even describing what we do know is a complex challenge. One way to proceed is to climb the scaffolding provided by the wide array of Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine over the […]