Vestigial vigilance: Reactivating dormant evolutionary pathways in human immunity

The article is an innovative approach to studying less understood yet potentially significant evolutionary systems, such as Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs) which constitute approximately 8% of the human genome without known pathogenic consequence and have been previously considered as non-functional DNA, the includes the theory that immune systems, having adapted to ancient environments pressures, may not be optimally adapted to contemporary environments. The article introduces a new paradigm to the research on the poorly understood yet potentially beneficial elements of human genome evolution, including the Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs), which are benignly integrated in 8% of human genome and the long-overlooked hypothesis of suboptimal immune adaptation: immune systems evolved in old environments, which can be poorly adapted to new environmental pressures. The article highlights an evolutionarily conserved form of innate immune memory, known as Trained Immunity, as a target of vaccines and immunomodulators. Careful regulation of this frontier suggests that novel approaches can be developed of treating cancer, and durable treatments of chronic inflammatory diseases in the twenty-first century by integrating evolutionary insights and functional genomics.