Ten experiments that would make a difference in understanding immune mechanisms.

Jacques Monod used to say, "Never trust an experiment that is not supported by a good theory." Theory or conceptualization permits us to put order or structure into a vast amount of data in a way that increases understanding. Validly competing theories are most useful when they make testably disprovable predictions. Illustrating the theory-experiment interaction is the goal of this exercise. Stated bleakly, the answers derived from the theory-based experiments described here would impact dramatically on how we understand immune behavior.