special feature
understanding immune pathways by david lee, m.d. ph.d
special editorial submitted by champion steward partner janssen pharmaceutical companies of johnson & johnson 50 connexions
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Changing the way we consider and classify disease may have a profound impact on how disease is treated. And it’s a change that’s long overdue. For over 250 years, diseases have been categorized by anatomical classification, or the predominant organ system involved, giving us, for example, nephritis for inflammation of the kidney, vasculitis for inflammation of blood vessels, dermatitis for skin inflammation, colitis for lower GI tract inflammation, and so on. This classification led to the assumption that there were distinct drivers based on anatomical location for each ‘disease’, with the result that new treatments were developed on an organ-by-organ basis.2 Prior to anatomical classification, in medieval times, disease classification was based on four “humors” (black bile, phlegm, yellow bile, and blood). The humors were said to be the four main substances that made up the human body. Any disability or sickness only meant that the humors were not balanced appropriately.1,2 The organ-based system radically changed
