This three-year award for U.S.-France cooperative research in immunology involves David Nemazee of the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine and Colette Kanellopoulos-Langevin of the Institut Jacques Monod, Universite Paris 7, Paris, France. The objective of the research is to investigate the role of pregnancy on maternal immune tolerance. Understanding how the mother tolerates the fetus, which represents a natural graft bearing foreign paternal antigens, is a central goal. The project uses transgenic mice in studying this problem and takes advantage of the French investigator's expertise on mouse development. The research will advance fundamental understanding of how fetal-specific B-cells of the mother are regulated by fetal antigen and how facultative tolerance to non-self tissue can be generated during pregnancy.
