Good evening! I have read through a lot of Immunobiology, as it is a college-level text book and I think I may have overestimated myself just a bit on "reading the whole thing". But, with college-level books, comes the fact that I learned a whole bunch. As the name implies, it was a very science-heavy book, and definitely needs some scientific background knowledge to fully understand what is happening. The main thing I learned about was the complement system. No, it isn't a system where your immune system complements itself, but I think we all need a system like that right now. The complement system is made up of different distinct proteins that opsonize pathogens, or make the pathogens "appetizing" towards the phagocytes. Basically, the complement system is made up all sorts of different proteins that specialize in binding to the receptors of different pathogens, and the proteins attract immune system cells such as macrophages to break down the pathogen. Anot...
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...
Posted 3/6: Blog 1! I decided what my subject is, which is going to be immunology, and different immune sciences. I found 3 books that I can read, which I believe acclimate in difficulty: first, I will start with Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive, then I will go on to An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of The Immune System, and then finally I will go through Immunobiology: The Immune System in Health and Disease. This week, there were two new things that I mostly learned about this week are interferons. Interferons are a system in place that your stomach cells, epithelial cells use to warn other cells that they are infected. When an epithelial cell recognizes that it is infected, it will send out interferons to tell other cells, "I am infected! Stop producing proteins to prevent the virus from reproducing!" Therefore the neighbor cells will pause production, and it will slow the rate at which the virus spreads. Then, another sp...
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