A worm’s-eye view of immunity
In 1998, scientists published the first complete genome of a multicellular organism — the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. At the same time, new technologies were emerging to help researchers manipulate genes and learn more about their functions.Around that time, Dennis Kim was looking for a new research project to do during his upcoming postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He decided to try to take advantage of the new genetic tools for studying C. elegans. In particular, he wanted to delve into what’s called the “innate immune system” — the first line of defense against invaders such as viruses and bacteria. “It was a jump into a new area for me. We had no idea what we would find,” says Kim, who is now an associate professor of biology at MIT. “By studying worms we can take a much more basic evolutionary perspective on the function of the innate immune...