Immune System and Operation Clean Sweep

Antibodies are involved in the immune response. They're made up of two light polypeptide chains and two heavy polypeptide chains bonded together. Antibodies have a variable region which acts in a similar way to the active site of an enzyme. Each antibody has a variable region that is the complementary shape for a particular antigen and

To fight of viruses, each of them have a special antibody formed to kill that particular virus. To be able to fight them, we need to have more antibodies, so our body produces antibodies to protect itself.

a. Antibodies allow scientists to target and identify specific disease agents because they bind to antigens to counteract them. The more antigens you have, the more antibodies you have, the more the of the virus/bacteria that there is in you.

“Humoral immunity is a type of immune response that depends on antibodies.” The response begins when a pathogen binds to a B cell. The B cell will engulf the pathogen and display a part of the antigen on its exterior. Once a T cell is exposed to the antigen-presenting B cell, the T cell will release proteins to activate the B cell. Now that the B cell is activated, it will produce antibodies to cause the pathogens to clump together. In the last stage of humoral immunity, phagocytes will engulf and destroy the pathogens.

“When interviewed by Curtis, Hilary Koprowski, the polio-vaccine pioneer who mounted that massive campaign, could not recall or find documentary evidence as to whether his group had used kidney cells from green monkeys or Asian macaques” 900,000 people received it, enough to start an epidemic.

Viruses, Plagues, and History, written by Michael Oldstone, is an insightful and highly educational book that details the history of, that’s right, viruses and plagues. Through typically dry, yet engaging prose, Oldstone recounts what seems like all of it while simultaneously bringing to light the contributions of those brave scientists who asked themselves, “why.” He focuses his attention on some of the most notable viruses such as smallpox, yellow fever, measles, polio, and later he focuses on more contemporary battles against disease.

5. In what ways could the virus have been passed to other people from the time Monet left his house until he arrived at Nairobi hospital?

4 which explains how many Many of the physicians who were hired to treat the infected victims of

He also worked with Peter Jahrling in the discovery of the Ebola Reston strain of the virus, and also was one of the first to realize the monkeys in the second Ebola Reston outbreak in the same monkey house.

It is believed that the first case of HIV/AIDs was first recorded somewhere in West Africa somewhere in the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then, it has spread across central Africa, undetected for a long time. But the question that has bewildered many, is how HIV spread in the first place. According to “Natural Transfer Theory”, HIV was spread to humans through chimpanzees. “Africans have been killing and eating monkey for at least fifty thousand years” (43). It was common for small African communities to hunt and eat chimpanzees. Chimpanzees were said to have “SIVs, simian immunodeficiency viruses that closely resembles HIV” (41). The virus is said to have spread to humans through these infected chimpanzees. The blood of these chimpanzees could have

Immunotherapy is a form of medical treatment intended to stimulate or restore the ability of the immune system to fight infection and disease. This can be by inducing, enhancing, or suppressing an immune response. Immunotherapies designed to elicit or amplify an immune response are classified as activation immunotherapies, while those that reduce or suppress immune response are suppression immunotherapies. Active immunotherapy has been effective against agents that normally cause acute self-limiting infectious disease. However, a more effective immunotherapy for chronic infectious diseases or cancer requires the use of appropriate target antigens; the

From the sequence scientists were able to determine that virus probably began its life in an animal then mutated before picking up the power to infect people.

Antigens are substances that provoke an immune response (they're the ultimate target for the immune system). Antibodies are simply proteins that are secreted as a result of the antigen provoked immune response. In short, antigens cause the disease and

If a pathogen breaches barriers: innate immune response result into an immediate effect of non- specific response. All Innate immune systems derived from plants and animals, when a pathogen evades the innate response, a third layer of protection is possessed by vertebrates in which activation of adaptive immune system takes place. The immune system response adopts itself within an infection and pathogen recognition is improved. As a result of the improved response, its then retains itself when the pathogen is eliminated in form of an immunological memory and allows the adaptive immune system to mount faster and stronger when pathogen is encountered each time.

For the immune system to able to keep us healthy it needs to be able to recognise what is a danger to our body and therefore needs to be removed, and what is safe. Proteins are used to do this. Pathogens have proteins on their surface called antigens, which activate the immune system. Our own cells also have surface proteins which the immune system recognises as part of the body and therefore doesn’t attack. (1)