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clearance, and short-term efficacy. But we've failed to
optimize them for what matters most in the long run:
biological compatibility.
Because here’s the paradox: we’ve built the most
sophisticated therapies in the history of medicine—
monoclonal antibodies, gene therapies, designer enzymes—
yet we’ve ignored the most basic principle of immunology:
the immune system remembers what it sees as foreign.
We’ve designed around the immune system instead of with
it. We’ve engineered molecules of exquisite precision, but
delivered them in ways the body was never meant to
receive—through injections, bypassing the mucosal
immune system, flooding the bloodstream with unfamiliar
proteins. We’ve expected harmony from intrusion. We’ve
chased potency while ignoring persistence.
And in doing so, we’ve forced the immune system into a
corner. It responds exactly as it was trained to do—by
neutralizing and rejecting what it doesn’t recognize as self.
Tolerization isn’t a failure of the body. It’s a consequence
of how we’ve chosen to engage it.
But there’s another way.
The Immune System Isn’t a Wall—It’s a Student
We often think of the immune system as a gatekeeper. A
defense system. A wall. But that’s not the whole picture.
The immune system is also a student—observing, adapting,
learning. And like any student, it needs the right teacher, in
the right environment, at the right time. Right now, our
biologics are barging into that classroom with a bullhorn—
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