Considering the similarities of APECED and thymoma patients in the development of anti‐IFN‐α and disease‐associated pancreatic and steroidogenic AIRE‐independent autoantigens, a new model was proposed in which the main outcome of AIRE defect is active autoimmunization in parallel with negative selection of autoreactive clones [143, 150, 151]. The gene discussed is IFNA1; the disease is thymoma.