Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my colleague and friend Jean-François Moreau, Professor
of Immunology at the University of Bordeaux, for his continuously inspiring
“big picture”of immunology. It has been a pleasure and honor to work at his
side since 2014. Maël Lemoine and Jean-François Moreau read the entire
manuscript and helped me to make it sharper. Lucie Laplane, Jan Pieter
Konsman, and Anya Plutynski each read one specific section and made very
useful comments. I owe special thanks to Wiebke Bretting, who drew several
figures of this Element. William Morgan made very useful suggestions. Many
thanks for discussions about immunology and philosophy to Lynn Chiu, Marc
Daëron, Louis Du Pasquier, John Dupré, Gérard Eberl, Melinda Fagan, Scott
Gilbert, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Deborah Gordon, Paul Griffiths, Matt Haber,
Philippe Huneman, Akiko Iwasaki, Jonathan Kipnis, Philippe Kourilsky, Bruno
Lemaitre, Tim Lewens, Richard Lewontin, Margaret McFall-Ngai, Alberto
Mantovani, Sarkis Mazmanian, Ruslan Medzhitov, Michel Morange, Alvaro
Moreno, Samir Okasha, Susan Oyama, Philippe Sansonetti, Ken Schaffner,
Elliott Sober, Kim Sterelny, Joan Strassmann, Marie-Elise Truchetet, Skip
Virgin, and Eric Vivier. My gratitude and admiration go to Jean Gayon
(1949–2018), my supervisor and friend, who is so greatly missed. This project
has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program–grant
agreement n° 637647–IDEM. I thank all the past and present members of
that project. I also thank all the members of the Conceptual Biology and
Medicine group, as well as the ImmunoConcept lab as a whole, the CNRS,
and the University of Bordeaux. I am lucky to work in such a friendly and
inspiring interdisciplinary environment.
This Element is dedicated to Jean-François Moreau, who embodies
immunology.