Summary: Waiting for the End

1. Niels Kaj Jerne

1. Paul Ehrlich-Institut, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Excerpt

These early days of June remind me of Kierkegaard's anecdote (1843) about an artist who was asked to paint a mural of the passage of Moses across the Red Sea. He painted the entire wall red and explained: “the point in time that I have chosen to consider is when the Jews had already crossed and the Egyptians were already drowned.” My present point in time is similar with respect to the passage of the trans- and cis-immunologists across the stage of this Cold Spring Harbor Confrontation, and I am afraid that my picture may show a similar lack of detail.

First, speaking for all participants, I thank our host, Dr. John Cairns, Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of Quantitative Biology, for having organized this symposium and for having brought together this representative group of immunologists at the moment in history when we are experiencing the massive impact...