Antibody Quotes

“More about the selection theory: Jerne meant that the Socratic idea of learning was a fitting analogy for 'the logical basis of the selective theories of antibody formation': Can the truth (the capability to synthesize an antibody) be learned? If so, it must be assumed not to pre-exist; to be learned, it must be acquired. We are thus confronted with the difficulty to which Socrates calls attention in Meno [ ... ] namely, that it makes as little sense to search for what one does not know as to search for what one knows; what one knows, one cannot search for, since one knows it already, and what one does not know, one cannot search for, since one does not even know what to search for. Socrates resolves this difficulty by postulating that learning is nothing but recollection. The truth (the capability to synthesize an antibody) cannot be brought in, but was already inherent.”
― Niels Kaj Jerne

“The substrates within each CDR that are frequently seen mutated are defined as “hotspots”. They are described by preferences for purines, rather than pyrimidines, as well as for particular codons, or codon motifs within the sequence. The fact that mutation in a hotspot can create or delete other hotspots indicates a higher order structure to the mutation process than that which is currently observable.
McKay Brown, Mary Stenzel-Poore, Susan Stevens, Sophia K. Kondoleon, James Ng, Hans Peter Bachinger, and Marvin B. Rittenberg. Immunologic memory to phosphocholine keyhole limpet hemocyanin. Journal of Immunology, 148(2):339–346, January 1992.”
― Laura F. Landweber, Evolution as Computation