About the Original Sin

Genetics of Original Sin

The continuous repetition of Christian de Duve’s primary thesis in Genetics of Original Sin ensures that however little the reader understands or is interested in biology, he will have no doubt as to the author’s primary concern: Natural selection has made humans poor prognosticators. As evolutionary adaptation is all about living (and reproducing) in the moment, humans have evolved some unfort...

Original sin and education.

Overcoming original (antigenic) sin.

Original antigenic sin describes a phenomenon in which the antibody response elicited in an individual after a secondary viral infection reacts more strongly to the viral variant that originally infected the individual. As T helper cells play critical roles in promoting antibody responses, a similar phenomenon may hold true for T helper cell responses. This concept is particularly relevant to t...

Disquisitions on Original Antigenic Sin

Experiments in rabbits were designed to test the two unproven assumptions of the hypothesis proposed in the companion paper (1): that Original Antigenic Sin is fundamentally a restricted anamnestic response, and that there exists a trapping mechanism capable of deflecting antigen from one kind of cell and guiding it to another. It is shown that whole-body X-irradiation, sufficient to abolish pr...

The Wages of Original Antigenic Sin

was thinking when pondering certain inexplicable serologic data from a 1946 infl uenza vaccine trial may never be known. Whether in religious reverence for the beauty of science or impish delight fueled by the martini breaks of which he was so fond, Francis coined the term " original antigenic sin " to describe a curious new immunologic phenomenon. Elsewhere in this issue, Adalja and Henderson ...