First published in 1989, Immunology of Nude Mice presents a discussion of the nature of this viable laboratory mutant. This new volume updates all immunological information contained in the sparse literature concerning nude mice. It comprehensively explores some of the fre-quent questions associated with nude mice, such as if the mutant is really athymic or if the thymic defect causes all of the other deviations from brain to gonads. The practical consequences of hairlessness of the mutant are also consid-ered. Illustrated with original photographs and tables doc-umenting novel facts in immunology and physiology of nude mice, this publication is valuable for investigators and stu-dents entering the field.
About the Author: Miroslav Holub, M.D., Ph.D., is a senior scientific worker at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He heads the experimental unit of the Institute's Immunological Department. Dr. Holub graduated and received the M.D. degree from the Charles IV. University, Prague, in 1953 and worked as a clinical pathologist. In 1954, he joined the newly formed immunological laboratory in the Biological (later Microbiological) Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and obtained the scientific degree, about equivalent to Ph.D. in 1958. He was engaged in the studies of cytological aspects of antibody formation and of the key role of the lymphocyte. During 1965 to 1967, he worked in the immunological laboratory of the Public Health Research Institute of New York City and in 1968 to 1969 at the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology in Freiburg, W. Germany. He was introduced to the nude mouse club by the late Dr. Berenice Kindred, and has stayed on as a faithful member for all years thereafter, with the main interest focused on the nature of thymic dysgenesis. In 1972, he was transferred from the Academy to the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine. He has published, so far, 130 scientific papers in immunology, one monograph (Structure of the Immune System, Prague 1979) and chapters in the Modern Trends in Immunology 2, London 1967 and in the Grundriss der Immunbiologie, Leipzig 1978 and 1988. During 1968 to 1970 Dr. Holub was a member of the presidium of the Union of Czechoslovak Scientific Workers. He is also a known writer translated in most European countries, the U.S., India, China, and Japan. In 1985, he obtained an honorary degree from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, and is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Arts.