The term security hole is commonly used in the field of computer networks and is related to a software piece of code, not necessarily a "bug", which could potentially end up allowing "un-trusted" parties of carrying out acts they are not authorized to do. The term, "untrusted" is used exclusively in the field of computer science and information security to denote code from an unknown source that may be potentially harmful to a system. A more general perception of the security hole is: "a system feature which enables its usability, imposes fairness, and / or adds useful functionalities which can be exploited in a bad way."
Just like any system, the immune system has a security hole. The process of maintaining tolerance to self antigens can be exploited by invaders to escape from an effective immune response, at least temporarily. In the presented work, the transport of antigens to the central organs of an immune system is identified as a critical issue for the induction of tolerance. As red blood cells (RBCs) are specialized for transport, work was directed towards studying the existence of fetal antigens in RBCs. When this was proved, the study of self and bacterial antigens in RBCs was conducted. The results point out that RBCs play a crucial role in tolerance and represent a security hole that is exploited positively by a fetus and negatively by microorganisms. This will help in many directions that will be briefly described.
Brief CV
Professor Mahmoud Rafea graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University in November 1975 with an M. B. Bch., in Medicine and Surgery; he also has an M. Sc. degree in clinical pathology and chemistry. He started studying computer science in 1984-85 and obtained his PhD from Cairo University in 1995. He worked as senior researcher at SICS Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2000-2002. He is currently directing the research and development activities of CLAES.