Original Sin Mystery Trinity and Unequal Blessings

Original sin and education.

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...

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...

Original Antigenic Sin and Pandemic (H1N1) 2009

To the Editor: While pandemic (H1N1) 2009 was in its earliest stages, age distribution data indicated surprisingly few cases among persons >65 years of age. The initial assumption was that few persons >65 years of age had yet to be exposed. However, as more data became available from Mexico, Australia, and the United States, the age distribution pattern persisted (1). This observation raised th...