Posted 3/27
Good evening folks! Thanks for tuning in once again. This week, I finished reading the book An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System. It was a more journalistic approach to the subject rather than a scientific, and I read it because it gave me a more wide lens on my subject. I would not really recommend it to people who are just getting into Immunology, because it uses some more complicated phrases and understandings that require you to have a bit of background knowledge on, which was perfect for me.
This book talks about the lives of three patients, one who suffered from cancer, Jason Greenstein, one who overcame HIV, Bob, Hoff, and a women who suffered from terrible autoimmune disease, her body attacking herself, Linda Segre.
Jason Greenstein was on the verge of death. His lymphoma (cancer of the lymphatic system) had become malicious and malignant, and by any definition terminal. His fifteen month battle with Cancer included harsh Chemo and Immunotherapy, but his malignancy kept coming back. He had to resort to a bone marrow transplant, which would give him new stem cells. After some high-dose chemotherapy, his transplant happened, and his immune system was effectively destroyed for the next two weeks. But after a month, he was released from the hospital. Now, he was in a "preschool immune system." Just like how a kid might bring home every single virus that their preschool has to offer, Jason's immune system was in that phase: it had to relearn. Jason's cancer had been effectively cured, but in trade, he had to go through the equivalent of a toddler's amount of disease.
Bob Hoff figured that he contracted Hepatitis on Halloween night of 1977. He thought it went with his lifestyle: Hoff was a closeted man in college. He met a man named Ron Resio in his local gym. The two became friends, and then ended up being involved sexually. This one decision caused one of the most excruciating and enduring trials of the human immune system ever to be conducted: The search to stop AIDS in the fascinating immune system of Bob Hoff. He ended up in the hospital, and he was diagnosed with a fungus: Pneumocystis Carinii. All the patients who had contracted this held on for a few weeks, and then died. But not Hoff. In mid-1982, Hoff was admitted to the National Institute of Health (NIH) to study a new STD that was showing up inside the gay community, and it was known then as GRID, Gay Related Immunodeficiency. The NIH had gathered a group of gay men with this peculiar disease, and wanted to draw their blood to see what was happening (one of these people who just happened to be Dr. Fauci). This was a fascinating new case, and after a while the STD was renamed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). But what was more fascinating, was how the gay men around Bob were dying off day after day, but he kept surviving. somehow even though he definitively had HIV, somehow his immune system had sustained itself. It had been a medical mystery till this day.
Linda suffered from a horrible autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases are when your immune system recognizes your cells or innocent cells as invaders, and attack them. Allergies are an example of this, even though the food isn't doing anything to you, your body attacks it and drives you into attack mode, and you end up with an allergic reaction. Linda Bowman gave birth to a sun in 1995, and he was her second child, with a sister at the age of two at the time. She believed that she could do it all, and only took ten days of maternity leave. That December, Linda fell ill to what she suspected was strep, but when in 1996 it turned into a rash, all over limbs, she decided to consult her doctor. The doctor didn't know what it was. Then, in September of 1996 her left big toe swelled to golf-ball size, she couldn't ignore it, and went back to the doctor's office. Her body was now at a full-fledged assault, and the assault was on her own body; she had contracted Rheumatoid Arthritis. Her body's immune system was attacking her joints. But, in 1998, a breakthrough" Enbrel. The first major drug that was targeted at treating RA. In 1999, Linda took her first infusion of Enbrel. It took a few months, but gradually, the pain subsided! Instead of trying to fight the immune system, Enbrel had literally told the cells to apoptosis, cell self-death, and the overactivity of the immune system subsided.
Well that was the stories of three different patients suffering from horrible diseases. I think it was a bit too formal for a blog post, but sometimes you have to be. These were some really interesting cases, and some very intriguing stories. Keep following for next blog, where I dive into my final book, Immunobiology. Thanks for my repeat readers, and I hope you enjoyed this latest blog! Keep up all of your great work!
I commented on Parth, Stephan, and Kevin's blogs.
This is very interesting. I never knew it was possible to be cured from HIV. - Kartik
ReplyDeleteYou're blog did a god job of relaying information from a seemingly complicated book and making it easy to understand and enjoyable to read. Out of all of the blogs I've read, yours was the among the best to read. The stories and interesting and not told in an overly formal way. Overall, this was a very good blog!
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