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Immunology and the Immune Response

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Molecular Life Sciences

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Synopsis

Immunology, a branch of biomedical sciences pioneered by Edward Jenner in 1796, investigates the ability of an organism to respond to antigenic challenge and differentiate between “self” and “nonself.” Building on the work by Jenner and other influential immunologists, Emil von Behring and Kitasato Shibasaburo developed the theory of how antibodies function in the late 1890s; at the same time, Elie Metchnikoff developed the theory of phagocytosis. The work of these scientists initiated studies of the adaptive and innate immune responses, respectively. Invading infectious agents first encounter the host innate immune system, present in some capacity in all multicellular organisms. Innate immunity does not recognize pathogen-specific antigens and consists of anatomical barriers (skin, cilia, mucus, peristalsis, etc.), commensal microbes (nonpathogenic bacteria producing antimicrobial substances such as bacteriocidins, cationic proteins, and lactoferrin), and antimicrobial...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

    James Marion

Authors
  1. James Marion
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Correspondence to James Marion .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    Robert D. Wells

  2. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA

    Judith S. Bond

  3. Department of Chemistry Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California The california institute for Quanti, Berkeley, California, USA

    Judith Klinman

  4. Department of Biochemistry, The University of Texas Health Science C, San Antonio, Texas, USA

    Bettie Sue Siler Masters

  5. Dept of Chemistry, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, USA

    Ellis Bell

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Marion, J. (2014). Immunology and the Immune Response. In: Wells, R., Bond, J., Klinman, J., Masters, B., Bell, E. (eds) Molecular Life Sciences. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6436-5_648-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6436-5_648-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6436-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

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