Author Description

The area of the Lake of Galilee, which is the site of the Fifth Conference on Lymphatic Tissues and Germinal Centers, has been a germinal center of dramatic events in human history. Thus, some two million years ago, it seems to have harbored an important phase of human evolution, when the descendants of the African Australopithecus migrated northwards, attempting to become Homo sapiens. Two thousand years ago, this very place was a germinal center for a new religion which determined some of the most important components of the history of western civilization. This may have been the first significant contribution of the people of the Lake of Galilee area to the world of ideas and values. More recently, some 70 years ago, this very place was a germinal center for a great experiment aimed at the translation into actual reality of ethical and social values, by the establishment of the first kibbutz in Israel on this shore. We, therefore, hoped that by selecting this place for the Fifth Germinal Centers Meeting we could expect the inspiration of the site to generate new concepts and views. We should admit, however, that the lymphoid germinal center in senso stricto was not the subject of many of the contributions that were presented at the conference. However, this seems justified in view of the present state of the art, for it is realized that, in aiming at the understanding of the relations of cellular tissue structures to immunological function, a deeper insight ought to be obtained into more basic systems. Hence, the symposium opened with a discussion of the ontogeny of lymphoid cells which was followed by a series of presentations on surface properties of lymphocytes and their relation to processes associated with the immunological activation of these cells. This furnished the basis for an approach to an area intimately connected with germinal center formation and function, i. e., problems of microenvironment, lymphocyte migration and induction. The specificity of the immune response is obviously determined by the recognition of antigens by cells; hence, problems of cell receptors and the control of immune reactions constituted a significant part of the conference. Tumor immunity and immunopathology were the natural extensions towards aspects of applied immunology and human biology.