Heidelberger continued his detailed chemical studies of polysaccharide antigens after he returned to New York City and joined the Department of Pathology at the New York University School of Medicine as adjunct professor in 1964. In this article, Heidelberger and his coauthors examined the immunological effects of haptens, small molecules that are not antigenic by themselves but that can elicit the formation of antibodies of appropriate specificity and react with such antibodies when chemically fused, or conjugated, to a larger antigenic molecule, here pneumococcal polysaccharide. In particular, the article compared the effects of conjugated haptens on the primary antibody response--the initial immune response to an antigen--with their effects on the secondary antibody response, in which the level of immunity acquired during the first response (immunity that persists for a variable period of time) normally is boosted by renewed exposure to the same antigenic agent.. Haptens were given their name (from the Greek haptein, to fasten) and their role in immunology was first studied by Karl Landsteiner, with whom Heidelberger collaborated during the early 1920s at the Rockefeller Institute.
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