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Understanding immunity requires more than immunology

Nature Immunology volume 11, pages 561–564 (2010)Cite this article

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 October 2010

This article has been updated

Acetylcholine and related neurotransmitters appeared with unicellular life forms, millions of years before innate immunity. Tools and insights are now available for understanding how the evolving nervous system influenced the development of immunity.

Ten years ago, on page 1 of the first volume of Nature Immunology, the editors noted that “immunology has always been driven by fundamentally interesting questions.” Today, the intrigue continues. How is immunity acquired, controlled and maintained? How did it evolve? What is the physiological role of immunity during the host response to infection, cancer, aging and injured tissue repair? What can the molecular mechanisms of immunity teach about metabolism, the activity of complex systems and new approaches for developing targeted therapeutics?

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Figure 1: Foreign products derived from infecting pathogens and endogenous molecules released from ischemic or ruptured cells converge on the innate immune system, which leads to cytokine release.

Katie Vicari

Figure 2: Neural signals transmitted to spleen down-modulate the inflammatory phenotype of passing lymphocytes and monocytes.

Katie Vicari

Change history

  • 25 June 2010

    In the version of this article initially published, the affiliation provided was incorrect. It should read as follows:“Kevin J. Tracey is with the Center for Biomedical Science, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York, USA.” The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kevin J. Tracey is with the Center for Biomedical Science, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York, USA.,

    Kevin J Tracey

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  1. Kevin J Tracey
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Correspondence to Kevin J Tracey.

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Tracey, K. Understanding immunity requires more than immunology. Nat Immunol 11, 561–564 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni0710-561

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