  New Understanding of Immune System Creates Unexpected Links in
Medicine  December 14, 2006   To be effective, the immune system
must “decide” which cells and chemicals need to be ramped up to
best destroy the invader at hand, be it bacterium, virus or
worm. In 1986, Tim Mosmann, Ph.D., now director of the David H.
Smith Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology at the
University of Rochester Medical Center, led a team that first
described a new concept for how the immune system might make
such choices: the Th1/Th2 Model. A landmark in immunology, it
was a major step toward unraveling the system’s complexities.
Today’s study results show how the model continues to define new
players in the immune system and to suggest new treatment
approaches.  “The point of the study is that each new detail in
our understanding of the immune system creates opportunities to
make changes that counter disease,” said Mosmann. “These
results, while early, suggest that helping the body make more of
a newly defined immune chemical