In Defense of Self: How the Immune System Really Works

by William R. Clark

Overview

We live in a sea of seething microbial predators, an infinity of invisible and invasive microorganisms capable of setting set up shop inside us and sending us to an early grave. The only thing keeping them out? The immune system.

William Clark's In Defense of Self offers a refreshingly accessible tour of the immune system, putting in layman's terms essential information that has been for too long the exclusive province of trained specialists. Clark explains how the immune system works by using powerful genetic, chemical, and cellular weapons to protect us from the vast majority of disease-causing microbes-bacteria, viruses, molds, and parasites. Only those microbes our bodies need to help us digest food and process vitamins are admitted. But this same system can endanger us by rejecting potentially life-saving organ transplants, or by overreacting and turning too much force against foreign invaders, causing serious—occasionally lethal—collateral damage to our tissues and organs. Worse yet, our immune systems may react as if we ourselves are foreign and begin snipping away at otherwise healthy tissues, resulting in autoimmune disease. In Defense of Self covers everything from how antibodies work and the strategies the body uses to distinguish self from not self to the nature of immunological memory, the latest approaches to vaccination, and how the immune system will react should we ever be subjected to a bioterrorist attack. Clark also offers important insights on the vital role that the immune system plays in cancer, AIDS, autoimmunity, rheumatoid arthritis, allergies and asthma, and other diseases.

Of special interest to all those suffering from diseases related to the immune system, as well as their families, In Defense of Self lucidly explains a system none of us could live without.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195336634
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/04/2008
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	8.46(w) x 5.99(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Dr. William Clark is Professor and Chair Emeritus of Immunology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is an internationally recognized authority on the killer T lymphocytes involved in organ transplant rejection and in viral immunity. He has written extensively on topics in science and medicine for the general public.

Table of Contents

Part I: How The Immune System Works1. What Is An Immune System? 2. Antibodies3. How Do Antibodies Work? 4. T Cells: The Second Arm of Adaptive ImmunityPart II: The Immune System in Health and Disease5. The Immune Response to Infectious Disease: All Out War!6. When the Immune System is the Problem, and Not The SolutionSection I: Microbial Immunopathology7. Vaccines: How They Work, Why Sometimes They Don't, And What We Can Do About It8. When the Walls Come Tumbling Down: AIDS9. When the Walls Come Tumbling Down: Primary Immune Deficiencies10. When the Immune System is the Problem, and Not The SolutionSection II: Hypersensitivity and Allergy11. The Immune System and Cancer12. Autoimmunity13. Organ Transplantation14. First Defense: The Immune System and Bioterrorism