Following their discovery in the early 1970s, classical human leukocyte antigen (HLA) loci
have been the prototypical candidates for genetic susceptibility to infectious disease …

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and interleukin-1 receptors (IL-1Rs) have TIR intracellular
domains that engage two main signaling pathways, via the TIR-containing adaptors MyD88 …

Leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium leprae and affects about 700,000 individuals each
year. It has long been thought that leprosy has a strong genetic component, and recently we …

Hereditary hypophosphatemic rickets with hypercalciuria (HHRH) is a rare disorder of
autosomal recessive inheritance that was first described in a large consanguineous Bedouin …

Background Close contacts of patients with leprosy have a higher risk of developing leprosy.
Several risk factors have been identified, including genetic relationship and physical …

Genetic epidemiology, including twin studies, provides robust evidence that genetic
variation in human populations contributes to susceptibility to infectious disease. One of the …

Until the mid-nineteenth century, life expectancy at birth averaged 20 years worldwide,
owing mostly to childhood fevers. The germ theory of diseases then gradually overcame the …

Tremendous progress has been achieved in developmental, cellular and molecular
immunology in the past 20 years, largely due to studies using the mouse as a model system …

Macrophages, the major host cells harboring Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb), are a
heterogeneous cell type depending on their tissue of origin and host they are derived from …

The observation that only a fraction of individuals infected by infectious agents develop
clinical disease raises fundamental questions about the actual pathogenesis of infectious …