Peter Parham Quotes & Sayings

Unlike some other immune-system gene families, whose genes are all clustered together on one chromosome, the 10 human TLR genes are distributed between five chromosomes. This reflects the ancient, invertebrate origin of the Toll-like receptors, which were present before the two genome-wide duplications that occurred during the early evolution of the vertebrates around 500 million years ago. On the basis of sequence similarities, the Toll-like receptors form four evolutionary lineages (I, II, III, and IV) that are descendants of the four Toll-like receptor loci formed by these two ancient genome duplications. — Peter Parham

When vaccination programs are successful to the point where the disease is unfamiliar to physicians and public alike, then concerns can arise with real or perceived side effects of a vaccine that affect a very small minority of those vaccinated. Such concerns lead to fewer children being vaccinated and to increasing occurrence of the disease. — Peter Parham

In the absence of infection, more than 100 million NK cells are circulating at speed throughout the human body, fully loaded with poisons whose sole function is to kill human cells. This dangerous state of affairs necessitates strict regulation of the activation and implementation of NK-cell cytotoxicity. — Peter Parham

The total number of different specific antibodies that can be made by an individual is known as the antibody repertoire and it might be as high as 10^16. In practice, the number of B cells limits the actual repertoire to closer to 10^9. — Peter Parham