Our immune system is the only thing standing between us and a sea of microbial predators that could send us to an early and ugly death. Equipped with genetic, chemical and cellular weapons, it evicts unwelcome microrganisms that find the human body a delightful place to live, carefully admitting only the few microbes that our bodies need to help us digest food and process vitamins. When the system works successfully, the vast majority of disease-causing microbes - bacteria, viruses, molds and a few parasites - are kept at bay.
But the immune system isn't perfect. The same system that could save us in the event of a bioterrorist attack, prevents us from accepting potentially life-saving organ transplants. It overreacts at times, turning too much force against foreign invaders, causing serious - occasionally lethal - collateral damage to our tissues and organs. Worse yet, our immune systems may decide we ourselves are foreign and begin snipping away at otherwise healthy tissues, resulting in autoimmune disease. And the system itself is the target of one of the most deadly viruses humans have ever known: HIV, the agent of AIDS.
In In Defense of Self, William Clark invites you on a whirlwind tour of your immune system. Along the way, he introduces some of most important medical advances and challenges of the past hundred years, from the development of vaccines and the treatment of allergies, autoimmunity and cancer, to prolonging organ transplants and combating AIDS. William Clark not only explains how a vital part of our bodies works to "serve and protect," he also provides background for the exciting research themes of today that will produce the medical breakthroughs of tomorrow.
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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.
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Paperback. Condizione: Good. 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 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. Codice articolo 00110404366
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Paperback. Condizione: Good. 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 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. Codice articolo CIN0195335554G
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