Annihilating host defence. Frank, M. M. Nature Medicine December (2001) Nature Medicine

A News and Views article discussing a newly discovered immune evasion mechanism of group A streptococci.

Milestones in cell division December (2001)

This special collection of Highlight articles covers the key papers in the field of cell division in the past 100 years, and is a collaborative effort from Nature, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology and Nature Reviews Cancer

The role of Fas ligand in immune privilege. Green, D. R. & Ferguson, T. A. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology December (2001) Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology

This review article discusses the evidence for and against a role for Fas ligand in immune privilege, a phenomenon which limits or prevents immune responses in particular sites in the body.

Genetics of susceptibility to human infectious disease. Cooke, G. S. & Hill, A. V. S. Nature Reviews Genetics December (2001) Nature Reviews Genetics

A review article discussing the links between genetics and infectious diseases, and how recent work might lead to new ways to control these diseases.

Asthma genetics: not for the TIMid? Wills-Karp, M. Nature Immunology December (2001) Nature Immunology

A News and Views article discussing the newly discovered Tim gene family in mice. Different forms of these genes are associated with the development of airway hyperreactivity, a feature of human asthma.

Plasma cells: finding new light at the end of B cell development. Calame, K. L. Nature Immunology December (2001) Nature Immunology

Insight on stem cells. Nature 1 November (2001) Nature

This collection of articles focuses on stem cells and includes the following articles:

The future for stem cell research. Lovell-Badge, R.

Stem cells, cancer, and cancer stem cells. Reya, T., Morrison, S. J., Clarke, M. F. & Weissman, I. L.

A review article which highlights the parallels between stem cells and cancer cells.

Ethical and social considerations of stem cell research. McLaren, A.

Stem cell therapy has the potential to alleviate numerous diseases that are currently incurable. But the source of these cells has led to considerable controversy and raised numerous ethical and social issues.

Counting on immunity. Bakker, T. C. M. & Zbinden, M. Nature 15 November (2001) Nature. A News and Views article discussing the mechanism for maintaining allelic diversity at the MHC locus — female sticklebacks 'count' the number of MHC alleles in males and select the male with the greatest number of alleles as a mate.