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From molecules to populations and back In biology, the most
vigorous organisms often ensue from a union of two disparate, pure
lines. In science, too, laws of hybrid vigor seem to operate at the
interface between two disciplines, an interface that often proves
to be fertile ground for germinating concepts and new outlooks. The
fringes of research into the major histocompatibility complex (Mhc)
have provided such an interface several times in the past and the
encounters have invigorated fields such as transplantation biology,
cellular immunology, and immunogenetics. In the last few years, a
new interface has been emerging between Mhc and evolutionary
genetics, and particularly the branch of evolutionary genetics
dealing with molecular evolution. Mhc research relies upon
molecular evolutionary genetics, with its grand superstructure of
mathematical formulations, to come to grips with the events leading
to and maintaining the Mhc polymorphism. Without the armament of
rigorous statistical procedures developed by evolutionary
geneticists, the intricate relationships among Mhc genes cannot be
resolved. It will undoubtedly be a molecular geneticist who is the
final arbiter in the dispute concerning the nature of the selection
pressure molding the Mhc genes. And it is doubtful whether the true
function of Mhc can ever be comprehended without the vantage point
afforded by the elucidation of its evolutionary history.
Put on your high-heel sneakers (or your carpet slippers) and join a
tour of the Black Rooms with their shuttered windows, of the Green
Rooms and the adjoining stages. Meet the man on the stage, flanked
by Hamlet and Heisenberg, uncertain of what was and what will be,
but quite assured that he cannot keep time: Peter Hammill. The
critical toolbox and the associative palette are used in roughly
equal measures, leaving scholarly glyphs as well as poetic graffiti
down Hammill's passage of time. The shouting, however, is up to you
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