When a germ such as a virus or bacteria enters your body, your immune system goes into battle. It makes antibodies that locate the germ and launches an attack to fight it off. After the antibodies have attacked they stick around in the body to protect you if the same germ enters your body again. […]
What happens after you are injected with a viral vaccine? And which viral vaccine type is best? (Note that I’m going to be talking about viral vaccines ONLY.) First of all, there two basic types of viral vaccines: live attenuated vaccines (LAV) and inactivated (killed) vaccines. LAV contain a vaccine virus that is a weakened version of the natural disease-causing virus. Inactivated vaccines use a […]
The body’s immune system makes antibodies in response to something it believes needs to be destroyed. Most often, antibodies are made to attach to foreign substances, “immunogens”, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, animal dander, cancer cells…and the list goes on. Occasionally antibodies are made to our own body’s tissues, as is the case with […]
As stated in lesson 4, adaptive immune responses to foreign antigens are made up of cell-mediated and humoral processes. The lymphocytes that carry out these processes (T cells for cell-mediated and B-cells for humoral) have fundamental properties that are essential for proper immune system function. And here they are:
If you haven’t been following my “beautiful immune system” lessons, I highly suggest you go back and read the first three lessons to catch up. These are short and simple lessons leading you through what will eventually be a great understanding of how the immune system works. I hope you enjoy! To the Beautiful Immune […]