Dr Adams (85) was invited to speak at last month's World Congress of Immunodiseases and Therapy in Beijing.
A paper by Dr Adams, John Knight and Alan Ebringer was published in the latest issue of journal Autoimmunity Reviews, describing ways to destroy "forbidden clones".
"We have solved the long-standing mystery of why autoimmune diseases occur.
"This is a big step forward for medicine and is why I was invited to the world congress in Beijing, where my talks were accepted without reservation."
He said that for 20 years, research of autoimmune diseases - when a person's own immune system causes illness - had suffered from a lack of basic theory, leading to "misdirected, ineffective research".
Of "fundamental importance" was Australian bacteriologist Macfarlane Burnet's "forbidden clone theory".
Dr Burnet suggested lymphocytes, the main cells of the immunity system, have random gene mutations when multiplying.
These "unlucky" gene mutations in multiplying lymphocytes produce the "forbidden clones" that cause autoimmune diseases by reacting with a host component instead of a microbial one.
"This is important because it shows that cures for autoimmune diseases can come from finding and selectively destroying forbidden clones, leaving the remainder of the immunity system in action for needed defence against infectious diseases."
