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Editorial

Nature Immunology 10, 325 (1 April 2009) | doi:10.1038/ni0409-325

Embrace the complexity

How many times has the typical immunologist been prompted—by professors, reviewers or peers—to recall what is 'upstream' or 'downstream' of an intracellular protein in the scheme of a signal emanating from a specific surface receptor? The answer is probably 'many'. Now, how many times has the typical immunologist been asked about 'lateral' inputs to that same signaling protein? The answer is probably 'far fewer'.