The Relevance of Research on Red Cell Membranes to the Understanding of Complex Human Disease: A Personal Perspective

Abstract

Molecular analysis in the service of research on human disease has finally come of age, as the chapters within this volume testify. Many technical advances, among them the development of recombinant DNA and its many applications, opened the way to study cells and processes that were unapproachable in the 1960s, when I first began my research career. The state of molecular biological studies at that time limited studies of human cell membrane proteins to experimental material most available and accessible, making the human erythrocyte membrane the favored target. I describe here how studies of red blood cell membrane proteins evolved and how results from those studies still inform present-day research.