Commentary on the biological self: Toward a 'Biological Ego'. From Garrod's 'chemical individuality' to Burnet's 'self'

Starting from the conceptual premises of Garrod, who as long ago as 1902 spoke of "chemical individuality", and of Burnet (1949), who recognized as self one's own molecular antigenic structures (as opposed to the antigenic "alien": the non-self), the discovery and understanding of HLA antigens and of their extraordinarily individual and differentiated polymorphisms have gained universal recognition. Transplant medicine has now dramatically stressed, within man's knowledge of himself, the characteristic of his "biological uniqueness". Today man, having become aware of being a biological antigenic-molecular individuality which is unique and different from that of all of his fellow men (except for monozygotic twins), can therefore easily consider himself a true "biological Ego".