Immunity, autoimmunity and immunotherapy: new frontiers in heat shock protein research.

This article focuses on the research in the field of immunity, autoimmunity and immunotherapy. The immune system is characterized by its capacity to respond with specificity. Re-exposure of the system to the same immunological stress may lead to an even more effective reaction. The advantage of specificity is linked with the maintenance of self-tolerance. In order to prevent an attack on the self-constituents in the body, the immune response has to be very selective in its recognition of antigen.