The immune response is crucial to preventing infection, promoting wound healing, and maintaining your body’s internal equilibrium. The overall immune response consists of 2 distinct immune systems – the innate immune system and the adaptive immune system. The innate immune response is the first to react to the infiltration of a pathogen or onset of a wound. Let’s dive into the complexities of the innate … Continue reading The Innate Immune Response
The inflammatory response is crucial to protecting our body from injury and infection. The collaborative coordination of immune cells to specifically target and eliminate infection while also working to heal lacerations is essential to our survival. To understand the mechanisms behind inflammatory signaling, we must first address the clinical signs of an inflammatory response as well as how an inflammatory response is initiated. Everyone has … Continue reading Initiation of an Inflammatory Response
The adaptive immune system is incredibly robust, recognizing and eliminating a variety of different pathogenic contexts. The driving force behind the adaptive immune system are B and T cells. These cells have the same generic function – eliminate specific foreign invaders via antigen recognition. Remember from our previous Immunology blog that antigens are anything that the immune system can recognize, which is not limited to … Continue reading B Cells vs T Cells – How Do These Cell Types Recognize Antigens Differently?
Lymphocytes, consisting of T-Cell, B-Cell, and Natural Killer Cells, are the attacking force of the acquired/adaptive immune system. Their overarching function is to selectively target and eliminate a wide variety of invading pathogens. Now, you may be wondering what exactly is the process that enables T-Cells and B-Cells to successfully eliminate different foreign bodies. The answer lies in ligand-receptor binding. To begin, let’s define and … Continue reading Lymphocytes & The Process of Antigen Recognition
The immune system has one primary task: protecting the body by eliminating foreign pathogens while avoiding attacks on self. To fulfill this duty, the immune system must perform several critical functions: For the immune system to effectively execute these tasks, it must possess: These attributes collectively empower the immune system to defend the body against pathogens while preserving its own tissues and functions. Having reviewed … Continue reading The Phases of the Immune Response
Blood serves as the primary transporter of nutrients to the billions of cells within the human body. Regardless of the individual functions of each cell, such as the contracting ability of cardiomyocytes, all cells depend on the nutrients and materials provided by the circulating bloodstream. Plasma, comprising over one-half of the blood’s volume, is the fluid component containing many substances essential for blood function. The … Continue reading The Blood & Lymph
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