““My review on NK cell recognition was a synthesis of knowledge, at the time of writing, of the NK cell surface receptors, their ligands, signaling pathways, and their role in immune responses to pathogens and tumors.””

Our understanding of how natural killer (NK) cells distinguish between healthy normal cells and virus-infected cells or tumors has advanced rapidly in the last few years. The Annual Review of Immunology is one of the few journals that provide comprehensive in-depth reviews in the field of immunology. As investigators venture into new avenues of research, the Annual Review articles provide a valuable resource to get an appreciation of the past literature in a field, as well as an up-to-date summary of recent major advancements.

My review on NK cell recognition was a synthesis of knowledge, at the time of writing, of the NK cell surface receptors, their ligands, signaling pathways, and their role in immune responses to pathogens and tumors.

My article on NK cells is a comprehensive review of recent work undertaken by many laboratories to understand how this type of white blood cell provides immune protection against cancer and viruses.

I began studying human NK cells in 1982 when I was at the Becton Dickinson Monoclonal Center in Mountain View, CA. Joe Phillips, then a postdoctoral fellow in our group, and since a long-term collaborator and colleague, made a monoclonal antibody against what was later designated CD16—the Fc receptor on NK cells. This provided the key reagent to positively isolate human NK cells and study their function.

An initial problem was our inability to grow long-term NK cell lines or clones—but this was solved by help from Hergen Spits, a colleague at the DNAX Research Institute, who devised culture conditions to generate human NK cells and T cell clones. Using hybridoma technology, optimal culture conditions for human NK cells, and molecular biology, we continued to make progress in understanding how NK cells function and contribute to innate immunity.

Lewis L. Lanier
American Cancer Society Research Professor
University of California, San Francisco
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
San Francisco, CA, USA

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