Issues
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Cover Image
Cover Image
About the Cover
Germinal centers (GC) are cellular factories in lymphoid tissues, where proliferating Ag-stimulated B cells expressing low-affinity IgM Abs are converted to cells that express high-affinity Abs of other classes, catalyzed by the Ag-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) that alters nucleotide sequences of transcribed Ig genes. GC comprise a dark zone with densely packed cells and a less densely packed light zone. The cells are embedded in a reticular network associated with specialized follicular dendritic cells and infiltrated by specialized follicular helper T cells. The cover image depicts GC in light and fluorescence microscopy. On the left is a human lymph node section stained with hematoxylin and eosin, showing a GC surrounded by the many small unstimulated B cells that make up most of a B-cell follicle (image courtesy of R.B. Colvin, Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA). GC B cells are proliferating lymphoblasts undergoing Ig class-switching with rapid rates of mutation of Ig variable domains. Shown on the right are live cells in the spleen of an immunized mouse with GC cells expressing AID (red fluorescence) and antigen-specific helper T cells (green fluorescence). Blue patches are B-cell follicles stained for IgD (image generated by J. Tas, courtesy of G. Victora's laboratory, Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, MA). For details, see the Masters of Immunology primer by Herman N. Eisen on page 381 of this issue.
About the Master
Herman N. Eisen, MD, is a professor emeritus in the department of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Eisen joined the faculty at MIT in 1973 as one of the founding members of the MIT Center of Cancer Research, later named the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Biology. He is also affiliated with the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT, and Harvard University. His early interest was in chemistry. Inspired by the work of Karl Landsteiner, who generated antibodies from hapten-linked proteins, and a seminar by Fred Sanger, who described how he deduced the amino acid sequence of insulin, Dr. Eisen began his distinguished research career in immunology, focused on antibody development and antigen recognition. Benefiting from the post–World War II expansion of NIH-supported research, Dr. Eisen received one of the first physician–scientist awards to study sulfonamide-induced antibodies at New York University (NYU). Using equilibrium dialysis he and his bench-mate, Fred Karush, determined the number of antigen-binding sites on antibodies (Eisen and Karush, J Am Chem Soc 1949;71:363–4). At Washington University in St. Louis (WUStL), Eisen and his colleagues discovered that the affinity of serum antibodies increases progressively with time after encountering antigen (later called affinity maturation of antibodies, and the subject of the Master primer in this issue). At MIT, the Eisen lab focused on CD8 T cells and their killing of cells that display peptide–MHC complexes recognized by the T cells' antigen-binding receptor.
Dr. Eisen was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1918. He entered the NYU honors program in 1934 and was the free-swinging, left-handed first baseman for the college's baseball team until he developed tuberculosis and had to leave school for a year. He received hisMDfrom NYU in 1943 and served residencies in pathology at the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital and in medicine at the Bellevue Hospital. After brief stints at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute and NYU Medical School, including part-time medical practice, he moved to WUStL in 1955, first as professor of medicine and then as professor and chairman of the department of microbiology.
Dr. Eisen has received numerous honors, including a National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator award, the von Behring-Heidelberger Award, and the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) Lifetime Service/Achievement award. He has served on the scientific advisory boards of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, MGH, the Children's Hospital of Boston, the National Institute for Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, the Roche Institute for Molecular Biology, and the Merck Institute. He was the vice president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (1965) and the president of the AAI (1968). Dr. Eisen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1965), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1969), and the Institute of Medicine (1974). - PDF Icon PDF LinkTable of Contents
Cancer Immunology Research
Cancer Immunology Research, launched in 2013 with Glenn Dranoff as founding Editor-in-Chief, is published by the AACR. The Journal illuminates the interplay between tumors and the immune system, with Robert D. Schreiber and Philip D. Greenberg serving as the Editors-in-Chief.
Table of Contents
Masters of Immunology
Cancer Immunology at the Crossroads: Experimental Immunotherapies
Cancer Immunology Miniatures
Priority Brief
Research Articles
Combination of Alphavirus Replicon Particle–Based Vaccination with Immunomodulatory Antibodies: Therapeutic Activity in the B16 Melanoma Mouse Model and Immune Correlates
Exposure to a Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor Has Detrimental Effects on Human Lymphocyte Viability and Function
Reprogramming Tumor-Infiltrating Dendritic Cells for CD103+CD8+ Mucosal T-cell Differentiation and Breast Cancer Rejection
Correction
Journal Archive
Cancer Immunology Research
(2013-Present)Published monthly since 2013.
(ISSN 2326-6066)
Cancer Immunity
(2001-2013; volumes 1-13)Published periodically from 2001-2013.
(EISSN 1424-9634)
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