"No Country for Old Men": Huxley's Brave New World and the Value of Old Age.

This article inserts Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) into a bioethical conversation about the value of old age and old people. Exploring literary treatments of bioethical questions can supplement conversations within bioethics proper, helping to reveal our existing assumptions and clear the way for more considered views; indeed, as Peter Swirski has argued, literary texts can serve as thought experiments that illuminate the ramifications of philosophical ideas. This essay examines the novel's representation of a society without old people in conjunction with ideas about aging and life narratives put forward by philosophers and bioethicists such as Ezekiel Emanuel, Gilbert Meilaender, and Alasdair MacIntyre.

The functional characterization of interleukin-10 receptor expression on human natural killer cells.

Human natural killer (NK) cells are large granular lymphocytes that constitutively express functional forms of the interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2R) and lyse tumor and virally infected cells without prior sensitization. NK cells with high density expression of CD56 (CD56bright) express the high affinity IL-2R and proliferate in response to low (picomolar) concentrations of IL-2. CD56dim NK cells express the intermediate affinity IL-2R and demonstrate enhanced cytotoxic activity without proliferation in response to high (nanomolar) concentrations of IL-2.

Interleukin (IL) 15 is a novel cytokine that activates human natural killer cells via components of the IL-2 receptor.

Interleukin 15 (IL-15) is a novel cytokine that has recently been cloned and expressed. Whereas it has no sequence homology with IL-2, IL-15 interacts with components of the IL-2 receptor (IL-2R). In the present study we performed a functional analysis of recombinant IL-15 on phenotypically and functionally distinct populations of highly purified human natural killer (NK) cells.

Expression of the zeta protein subunit in CD3- NK effectors derived from human thymus.

The origin, lineage derivation, and sites of human natural killer (NK) cell differentiation are presently unresolved. The vast majority of NK cells found in peripheral blood have surface membrane expression of CD2 and CD16. Both antigens trigger activation pathways which require the zeta protein, a signal-transducing subunit of the CD3-T cell receptor (CD3-TCR) complex which is found as an isolated homodimer (zeta-zeta) or heterodimer (zeta-Fc epsilon RI gamma) in human NK cells.