Contemporary topics in immunology: approaches to immunotherapy emerging from basic research

The seventh symposium in the series "Contemporary Topics in Immunology" was held on April 21, 1991, at the FASEB meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. It was sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, The American Association of Immunologists, and the Clinical Immunology Society. Five topics were discussed by leading researchers in areas of immunology that currently are of exceptional interest and show promise of leading to new advances in the prevention and treatment of human diseases. The topics included: the interactions between immunogenic peptides, class I MHC molecules and T cell receptors; initiation, maintenance, and breakdown of self-tolerance in B lymphocytes; inflammatory disease in HLA-B27 transgenic rats; properties and functions of interleukin-10; and transforming growth factor-beta in reproductive immunology. The exceptional quality of the presentations in this seventh symposium exemplified perfectly the path of basic research that often leads from the laboratory to the clinic.