While inbred mice have informed most of what we know about the immune system in the modern era, they have clear limitations with respect to their ability to be informative regarding genetic heterogeneity or microbial influences. They have also not been very predictive as models of human disease or vaccination results. Although there are concerted attempts to compensate for these flaws, the rapid rise of human studies, driven by both technical and conceptual advances, promises to fill in these gaps, as well as provide direct information about human diseases and vaccination responses. Work on human immunity has already provided important additional perspectives on basic immunology such as the importance of clonal deletion to self-tolerance, and while many challenges remain, it seems inevitable that “the human model” will continue to inform us about the immune system and even allow for the discovery of new mechanisms.

虽然近交系小鼠已经提供了我们对现代免疫系统的大部分了解，但它们在提供遗传异质性或微生物影响方面的信息能力方面存在明显局限性。它们作为人类疾病或疫苗接种结果的模型也没有很好的预测性。尽管人们齐心协力弥补这些缺陷，但在技术和概念进步的推动下，人类研究的迅速兴起有望填补这些空白，并提供有关人类疾病和疫苗接种反应的直接信息。人类免疫力方面的工作已经为基础免疫学提供了重要的补充观点，例如克隆缺失对自我耐受的重要性，尽管仍然存在许多挑战，