title: Starting at the end.
abstract: From the time when I entered immunology - in January 1965 at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California in the laboratories of Edwin (Ed) Lennox and Melvin (Mel) Cohn - my love has always been B lymphocytes and antibodies. I began my studies at the end of the developmental pathway of these B cells, with plasma cells. After more than 40 years in immunology, I have moved "backwards" over mature B cells, immature B cells, precursor B cells and lymphocyte progenitors to pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells. Initially it was an intellectual exercise to trace the unknown progenitor of known B-lineage cells; now it has become an experimental approach - to de- and re-differentiate B-lineage cells to earlier differentiation stages and to other lineages of hematopoietic cells.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany. melchers@mpiib-berlin.mpg.de
authors.forename: Fritz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Melchers
mesh_terms: D000486:Allergy and Immunology / Q000266:history*; D000818:Animals; D000906:Antibodies / Q000276:immunology; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000276:immunology*; D019070:Cell Lineage / Q000276:immunology; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D054448:Precursor Cells, B-Lymphoid / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies