Research Catalog

The generation of diversity : clonal selection theory and the rise of molecular immunology

Title
The generation of diversity : clonal selection theory and the rise of molecular immunology / Scott H. Podolsky, Alfred I. Tauber.
Author
Podolsky, Scott H.
Publication
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1997.

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Additional Authors
Tauber, Alfred I.
Description
x, 508 pages : illustrations; 25 cm
Summary
  • A major problem for immunologists had long been to determine how cells of the immune system could produce millions of distinct antibodies - and produce them on demand. The clonal selection theory explains that cells with genetic instructions to produce each antibody exist in the body in small numbers until exposure to the right molecule - the antigen - triggers the selective cloning that will reproduce the required cells.
  • But how can so many different antibody-producing cells be generated from such limited genetic material? The solution to this question came from new applications of molecular biology, and, as the authors argue, the impact of the new techniques changed both the methods and the concepts of immunology.
  • The Generation of Diversity is an intellectual history of the major theoretical problem in immunology and its resolution in the post-World War II period. It will provide for immunologists essential background for understanding the conceptual conflicts occurring in the field today.
Subject
  • Molecular immunology > History
  • Clonal selection theory > History
  • Antibody diversity > History
  • Antibody Diversity > physiology
  • Immunity, Cellular
  • Molecular Biology
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. [439]-492) and index.
Contents
Prelude: A Conceptual Orientation -- 1. The Burnet Legacy -- 2. CST and Molecular Immunology - A Dogmatic Alliance -- Interlude: The Conventional History -- 3. Germline, Somatic Mutation, and Recombinatorial Models: 1960-1974 -- 4. Immunobiological Theories of Antibody Diversity -- 5. From Protein to DNA -- 6. The Recombinant Revolution -- Interlude: A Historiographic Reappraisal -- 7. Heavy Chain Diversity and the Molecular Finale -- 8. An Accounting -- 9. The Fate of the Immune Self.
ISBN
0674771818 (alk. paper)
LCCN
97022942
OCLC
  • 36995358
  • ocm36995358
Owning Institutions
Columbia University Libraries