Publisher's Synopsis
Based on the second Banff Conference on reproductive immunology, this book offers a comprehensive view of immunoregulation and genetic interactions at the maternal-foetal interface, including both animal models and human experimental or clinical research. It focuses on the central issue in this field: the immune mechanisms involved in the survival of a foetus separated from the maternal circulation by a thin, semipermeable wall of cells - the trophoblast, a part of the placenta.;To the immunologist, the placenta poses the problem that genetically different tissue is intimately exposed to maternal immunocompetent cells, but does not cause an effective immune reaction. To the geneticist and developmental biologist, it raises a variety of questions about the regulation of development. These research concerns have their counterparts in the clinical fields of obstetrics (chronic spontaneous abortion and intrauterine growth retardation), paediatrics (birth defects, failure to thrive, and chronic graft-versus-host disease), oncology (trophoblast growth regulation, teratocarcinoma, and choriocarcinoma), and pathology (structural and functional bases for these defects). Progress in this field has led to clinical trials of immunological manipulation for promoting human foetal survival.;Readership: Immunologists; reproductive and developmental biologists; human geneticists; clinical researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology.
