●Lighting up TCR takes advantage of serial triggering. Chakraborty, A. K. Nature Immunology October (2002) Recently, mathematical modelling and experimental data have provided an insight into how T cells are activated after binding peptide–MHC complexes expressed on the surface of antigen-presenting cells. As described in this News & Views article, T cells take advantage of serial triggering.

●Amyloid-β immunotherapy for Alzheimer's disease: the end of the beginning. Schenk, D. Nature Reviews Neuroscience October (2002) This review discusses how immunization with amyloid-β might be used to treat, or even prevent, Alzheimer's disease.

●Inside the professionals. Yewdell, J. W. & Tscharke, D. C. Nature 29 August (2002) Recent studies, highlighted in this News & Views article, have used real-time microscopy to follow the trafficking of MHC class II molecules in live dendritic cells.

●A division of labor: DC subsets and HIV receptor diversity. Kavanagh, D. G. & Bhardwaj, N. Nature Immunology October (2002) This article describes how dendritic cells present at mucosal surfaces express specific arrays of receptors that can bind to the HIV protein gp120 and might be crucial in AIDS pathogenesis.

●Two faces of caspase-8. Barnhart, B. C. & Peter, M. E. Nature Immunology October (2002) This News & Views article discusses that caspase-8 is not only involved in lymphocyte death, but might also be important for lymphocyte proliferation.

●Toll-like receptors as potential therapeutic targets for multiple diseases. Zuany-Amorim, C., Hastewell, J. & Walker, C. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery October (2002) This review discusses the use of Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists or antagonists to treat chronic inflammatory diseases, and highlights possible problems that are associated with these approaches.

●Myelin failure in multiple sclerosis: breaking the spell of Notch. Hohlfeld, R. Nature Medicine October (2002) A News & Views article describing recent experiments that implicate Notch signalling in the control of axon myelination in the central nervous system. Could the Notch pathway be targeted to design therapies to improve myelination in patients with multiple sclerosis?