And the transplantation of foreign tissue could provoke an immune response from the body which could reject the new cornea.
The hope was that exposure to the genes would prompt an immune response in the body so that cells containing HIV virus would be recognised and destroyed.
When a person gets infected with a virus, the body typically mounts an immune response to it.
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The gene forces the body into producing too much of an immune system protein called interleukin-1.
Another theory is that the initial illness may have created an autoimmune reaction, causing the body's immune system to attack normal cells as if they were foreign substances.
Allergies usually result from an overactive immune function that may detect and eradicate malignant cells from the body, researchers said.
Type I diabetes is thought to be an "autoimmune" disease in which the body's own immune system - which is meant to fight foreign threats like bacteria - turns on the cells in a gland called the pancreas.
Parasites developing in the lymph nodes might alert the body that an invader is present, and activate a protective immune response.
University researchers had just pinpointed a source: a bad gene that causes the body to produce an oversupply of interleukin-1, an immune system protein.
If these can be identified, they hope that the number of these on the surface of tumour cells can be boosted, so they present an obvious target for "killer" cells in the body's immune system.
Dr Nasser explains that the broken skin can allow allergens such as peanuts to enter the unprotected body, prompting the immune system to react as if the peanut was an enemy invader.
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