• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2004

Transplantation would be the only way to cure the end-stage organ failure involving heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas. The replacement of the parts of the body damaged to lose its function or lost to trauma must be a dream of human-being. Human history is replete with chimeras, from sphinxes to mermaids, making one wonder if the ancients might actually have dreamed of what now is called 'xenotransplantation'. In the 20th century, the transplantation of organs and tissues to cure disease has become a clinical reality. The development in the fields of surgical techniques, physiology and immunology attributed to the successful transplantation in human. In the center of the successful transplantation lies the progress in understanding the cellular and molecular biology of immune system which led to the development of immunosuppressive drugs and the invention of the concept of immunological tolerance. The mandatory side effects of immunosuppressive drugs including infection and cancer forced us to search alternative approaches along with the development of new immunosuppressive agents. Among the alternative approaches, the induction of a state of immunologic tolerance would be the most promising and the most generic applicability as a future therapy. Recent reports documenting long-term graft survival without immunosuppression suggest that tolerance-based therapies may become a clinical reality. Last year, we saw the epoch making success of overcoming hyperacute rejection in porcine to primate xenotransplantation which will lead porcine to human xenotransplantation to clinical reality. In this review, I dare to summarize the development of transplantation immunology from the perspective of history.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.117-143
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• 2010

Along with the development of digital technologies, the information obtained during the medical procedures was working as a source of valuable assets. Especially, the secondary use of personal health information gives the ordeal to privacy protection problems. In korea, the usage of personal medical information is basically regulated by the several laws in view of general and administrative Act like Medicine Act, Public institutions' personal information protection Act, Information-Network Act etc. There is no specific health information protection Act. Health information exchange program for the blood donor referral related with teratogenic drugs and contagious disease and medical treatment reporting system for income tax convenience are the two examples of recently occurred secondary use of health information in Korea. Basically the secondary use of protected health information is depend on the risk-benefit analysis. But to accomplish the minimal invasion to privacy, we need to consider collection limitation principle first. If the expected results were attained with alternative method which is less privacy invasive, we could consider the present method is unconstitutional due to the violation of proportionality rule.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.70-76
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• 2001

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease characterized by a chronic inflammatory process, primarily involving the synovial membrane of peripheral j oints, where T cell activation is found. To address the superantigen stimulation in rheumatoid arthritis, T cell clonality and the expression of activation markers were analyzed. Methods: To detect TCRB V usage, inverse PCR and sequencing were done. Monoclonal antibodies were used for flow cytometric analysis of TCRBV8 or TCRBV5. As results, a restricted usage of TCRBV3 gene was detected in synovial lymphocytes from one rheumatoid arthritis patient. However, preferential usage for TCRB V8, which may be one indicator for stimulation by staphylococcal superantigen, was not obvious although general activation of T cells was found as high DR+ percentage in synovial T cells. These data show specific antigen rather than superantigen might involve the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.176-183
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• 2004

Background: Human seminal plasma (HSP)-induced hypersensitivity is one of the serious complications with sexual intercourse. The clinical manifestations of HSP-induced hypersensitivity may be related to the release of vasoactive mediators from mast cell induced by HSP. It has recently been reported that HSP modulates immune systems and induces mast cell degranulation and histamine release from rat peritoneal mast cells (RPMC). Ketotifen and disodium cromoglycate (DSCG), anti-asthmatic and anti-allergic drugs, have a role of mast cell stabilization and inhibit mast cell-induced leukocyte rolling and adhesion. But the inhibitory agents of HSP-induced mast cell activation are unknown. This study was performed to investigate the effects of DSCG and ketotifen on the HSP-induced mast cell activation. Methods: For this, influences of DSCG and ketotifen on the human seminal plasma-induced degranulation, histamine release and morphological changes of RPMC were observed. Results: The mast cell degranulation and histamine release of RPMC by HSP were induced in a dose-dependent fashion. The HSP-induced cytomorphological changes such as swelling, intracellular vacoules, and interrupted cell boundary were significantly inhibited by pretreatment with DSCG or ketotifen. DSCG and Ketotifen inhibited the HSP-induced degranulation and histamine release from RPMC. Conclusion: From the above results, it is suggested that DSCG and ketotifen have a inhibitory effect of the HSP-induced mast cell activation. DSCG and ketotifen may be used for treatment of HSP-induced hypersensitivity.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.184-189
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• 2004

Background: Hu syndrome, a neurological disorder, is characterized by the remote effect of small cell lung cancer on the neural degeneration. The suspicious effectors for this disease are anti-Hu autoantibodies or Hu-related CD8+ T lymphocytes. Interestingly, the same effectors have been suggested to act against tumor growth and this phenomenon may represent natural tumor immunity. For these diagnostic and therapeutic reasons, the demand for antibodies against Hu protein is rapidly growing. Methods: Polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies were generated using recombinant HuR protein. Western blot analyses were performed to check the specificity of generated antibodies using various recombinant proteins and cell lysates. Extracellular stimuli for HuR expression had been searched and HuR-associated proteins were isolated from polysome lysates and then separated in a 2-dimensional gel. Results: Polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies against HuR protein were generated and these antibodies showed HuR specificity. Antibodies were also useful to detect and immunoprecipitate endogenous HuR protein in Jurkat and BJAB. This report also revealed that TNF-${\alpha}$ treatment in BJAB up-regulated HuR expression. Lastly, protein profile in HuR-associated mRNAprotein complexes was mapped by 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Conclusion: This study reported that new antibodies against HuR protein were successfully generated. Currently, project to develop a diagnostic kit is in process. Also, this report showed that TNF-${\alpha}$ up-regulated HuR expression in BJAB and protein profile associated with HuR protein was mapped.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.51-57
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• 2015

Vaccines are the most effective and cost-efficient method for preventing diseases caused by infectious pathogens. Despite the great success of vaccines, development of safe and strong vaccines is still required for emerging new pathogens, re-emerging old pathogens, and in order to improve the inadequate protection conferred by existing vaccines. One of the most important strategies for the development of effective new vaccines is the selection and usage of a suitable adjuvant. Immunologic adjuvants are essential for enhancing vaccine potency by improvement of the humoral and/or cell-mediated immune response to vaccine antigens. Thus, formulation of vaccines with appropriate adjuvants is an attractive approach towards eliciting protective and long-lasting immunity in humans. However, only a limited number of adjuvants is licensed for human vaccines due to concerns about safety and toxicity. We summarize current knowledge about the potential benefits of adjuvants, the characteristics of adjuvants and the mechanisms of adjuvants in human vaccines. Adjuvants have diverse modes of action and should be selected for use on the basis of the type of immune response that is desired for a particular vaccine. Better understanding of current adjuvants will help exploring new adjuvant formulations and facilitate rational design of vaccines against infectious diseases.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.263-274
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• 2016

The exceptional development of electronic device technology, the miniaturization of mobile devices, and the development of telecommunication technology has made it possible to monitor human biometric data anywhere and anytime by using different types of wearable or embedded sensors. In daily life, mobile devices can collect wireless body area network (WBAN) data, and the co-collected location data is also important for disease analysis. In order to efficiently analyze WBAN data, including location information and support medical analysis services, we propose a geohash-based spatial index method for a location-aware WBAN data monitoring system on the NoSQL database system, which uses an R-tree-based global tree to organize the real-time location data of a patient and a B-tree-based local tree to manage historical data. This type of spatial index method is a support cloud-based location-aware WBAN data monitoring system. In order to evaluate the proposed method, we built a system that can support a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and Binary JSON (BSON) document data on mobile gateway devices. The proposed spatial index method can efficiently process location-based queries for medical signal monitoring. In order to evaluate our index method, we simulated a small system on MongoDB with our proposed index method, which is a document-based NoSQL database system, and evaluated its performance.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 1999

In medical field, the computer has been used in the automatic processing of data derived in hospital. the automation of diagonal devices, and processing of medical digital images. In this paper, we classify red blood cell into 16 class including normal cell to the automation of blood analysis to diagnose disease. First, using UNL Fourier and invariant moment algorithm, we extract features of red blood cell from blood cell image and then construct multi-layer backpropagation neural network to recognize. We proof that the system can give support to blood analyzer through blood sample analysis of 10 patients.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.8-17
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• 2012

Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of severe lower respiratory tract diseases in infancy and early childhood. Despite its importance as a pathogen, there is no licensed vaccine against RSV yet. The attachment glycoprotein (G) of RSV is a potentially important target for protective antiviral immune responses. Recombinant baculovirus has been recently emerged as a new vaccine vector, since it has intrinsic immunostimulatory properties and good bio-safety profile. Methods: We have constructed a recombinant baculovirus-based RSV vaccine, Bac-RSV/G, displaying G glycoprotein, and evaluated immunogenicity and protective efficacy by intranasal immunization of BALB/c mice with Bac-RSV/G. Results: Bac-RSV/G efficiently provides protective immunity against RSV challenge. Strong serum IgG and mucosal IgA responses were induced by intranasal immunization with Bac-RSV/G. In addition to humoral immunity, G-specific Th17- as well as Th1-type T-cell responses were detected in the lungs of Bac-RSV/G-immune mice upon RSV challenge. Neither lung eosinophilia nor vaccine-induced weight loss was observed upon Bac-RSV/G immunization and subsequent RSV infection. Conclusion: Our data demonstrate that intranasal administration of baculovirus-based Bac-RSV/G vaccine is efficient for the induction of protection against RSV and represents a promising prophylactic vaccination regimen.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.171-181
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• 2014

Asthma is a common pulmonary disease with several different forms. The most studied form of asthma is the allergic form, which is mainly related to the function of Th2 cells and their production of cytokines (IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13) in association with allergen sensitization and adaptive immunity. Recently, there have been many advances in understanding non-allergic asthma, which seems to be related to environmental factors such as air pollution, infection, or even obesity. Cells of the innate immune system, including macrophages, neutrophils, and natural killer T cells as well as the newly described innate lymphoid cells, are effective producers of a variety of cytokines and seem to play important roles in the development of non-allergic asthma. In this review, we focus on recent findings regarding innate lymphoid cells and their roles in asthma.