中文摘要：

发育与生殖研究国家重大科学研究计划项目“胸腺起源、发生、维持和退化”集中了国内胸腺发育研究相关的优秀基础研究团队．致力于揭示中枢免疫器官胸腺在进化中的起源、发生、维持和退化中的关键事件及隐藏的机制．这为未来免疫相关疾病的研究提供了理论基础。本文对该项目研究中的一些核心成果做一个简要概述。

英文摘要：

＂The origin, develpment, maintentance, involu- tion of thymus＂, a muhiple-project grant from the Na- tional Basic Research Program of China integrating the leading basic research groups, aims to elucidate the key events and the potential mechansims in the origins, development, maintaitenance and involution of the thymus. This will provide solid therotical basic for the un- derstanding of the immune-related diseases. This research has achieved a lot in understanding the important events in the thymus. Heare we highlighted some of the findings so far.