If you're losing hope

of losing weight .. .

"How much do I weigh? I really don't know. I've stopped
weighing myself."
"Food? Honestly, that's all I ever think about!"
"My weight? I can talk about anything — but not that."

Over four million Americans suffer from severe obesity.
Their lives, and the lives of their families, are painfully
affected by it. Because while the cause is unknown, we do
know that severe obesity causes emotional, financial and
health problems.
At Thorn Hospital, we offer help for men and women who
are 160% of their ideal weight, or who are more than 100
pounds over their ideal weight. Its a comprehensive weight
reduction program that combines highly refined surgical
treatments with sensitive, caring nursing and supportive,
informative counseling.
In addition, as a specialist in obesity-related surgery,
Thom Hospital is well prepared to handle
conventional surgical procedures where
obesity may create complications, or where
surgery is indicated because of obesity-
related factors.
For more information, an evaluation, or the
opportunity to observe a group discussion,
please call toll-free or write: Thom Hospital,
800-722-7413
458 Cross Street, Hudson, Michigan 49247.

Thorn Hospital is a non-profit community hospital dedicated to an obesity surgical program.

SINAI HOSPITAL

You are cordially invited to an open house
at Sinai Hospital Abraham and Anne Srere
Radiation Oncology Center
7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Wednesday, June 22.

A ceremony will be held at 3 p.m., followed
by tours of our state-of-the-art facility.

Valet parking will be available on the West
McNichols/Six Mile side of the hospital.

• • •

Please respond by June 15 to
(313) 493-7502.

LOVE page 40

of pride. They tell me,
`We don't need a call.
We have families.' We
tell them that 99 per-
cent of our people have
families. Isn't it still
nice to be called?"
Given the increas-
ing elderly population,
one might expect that
the demand for Ser-
vice With Love would
have risen as well. But
it hasn't. Some volun-
teers attribute the de-
cline to the lack of a
full-time Sinai staff
person assigned to the
project. Though orga-
nizers say it still runs
smoothly, outreach for
new call-ees has ta-
pered off.
"I love the pro-
Wilhelm, with her mother Betty, finds the
gram," said Ms. Fried- Florence
connection goes both ways.
man, a volunteer of 15
years. 'The only thing
If you are interested in more in-
I object to is when I began, I had formation about Service With
17 people to call each day. Now I Love, call the Sinai Hospital
have only seven and I want Guild at (313) 493-5300.
more." ❑

Symposium On
Immunology

arallels between the im-
mune system and the
workings of the brain were
discussed at a symposium
held at the Weizmann Institute
of Science in April.
Titled "Immunology as a Cog-
nitive Science," the gathering
brought together some 30 im-
munologists, brain researchers,
mathematicians and computer
scientists from Great Britain,
France, Germany, the Nether-
lands, Israel and the United
States. It was organized by in-
stitute Professors Irun Cohen of
the Department of Cell Biology
and Lee Segel of the Department
of Applied Mathematics and
Computer Science, with the as-
sistance of other colleagues from
Israel and abroad.
While immunologists have tra-
ditionally studied the chemical
nature of molecules that make
up the immune system and their
interactions, the Weismann
symposium — the first of its kind
— focused on the idea that the
complex behavior of the immune
system cannot be understood by
reference to its chemistry alone.
Rather, this behavior appears to
be governed by "cognitive" func-
tions that are due to the system's
chemistry but can be best stud-
ied at a higher level.
According to this approach, the
immune system is a clever cog-
nitive entity in the sense that it
can learn, remember and adjust
its responses to circumstances.

p

Much like the central nervous
system, it relies on its "senses" to
get information and translates
this information into action. At
the same time, because of its rel-
atively simpler structure and
greater accessibility to experi-
ments, the immune system is
better known at the molecular
level than the brain.
The goal of the symposium
was to bring together scientists
from various disciplines con-
cerned with the way organisms
acquire and use knowledge, in or-
der to explore the cognitive ap-
proach to the immune system.
For immunologists, this may pro-
vide insights into some poorly un-
derstood aspects of immunity,
such as the redundancy of its
chemical messengers. For many
other scientists, immunology pro-
vides a new system for under-
standing sensory, operational
and communication processes
that presumably are simpler
than those occurring in the brain
but address similar goals.
Funding for the meeting was
provided by the Robert Koch
Minerva Center for Research in
Autoimmune Diseases and the
Maurice and Gabriela Gold-
schleger Foundation at the Weiz-
mann Institute.
Professor Cohen holds the He-
len and Morris Mauerberger
Chair of Immunology, and Pro-
fessor Segel is the incumbent of
the Henry and Bertha Benson
Chair of Mathematics. ❑