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In Defense of Self
How the Immune System Really Works
William R. Clark
276 pages
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3 halftones, 25 line illustrations
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209x140mm
978-0-19-533555-2
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Paperback
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24 January 2008
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This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.
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- AIDS (Chapter 8); cancer (Chapter 11); bioterrorism (Chapter 14) are all timely/newsworthy topics
- Summarises the facts into an easily readable and interesting explanation of 'big picture' ideas for an audience without a scientific or technical background. A short glossary is provided to help general readers with scientific terms
- The book should interest anyone who has had any of the diseases or disorders described in Part II, and whose families want to understand in lay terms what their maladies involve. There are very few resources in accessible books about immunology
- Part I's four chapters describe the immune system and its components, how they fit together and work to protect us against microbial diseases. It covers antibodies, how they are made and how they work; T cells; strategies the body uses to distinguish what is self from what is not, and how the body discriminates precisely among different forms of non-self; the nature of immunological memory;and the interaction of the evolutionary older innate immune system with more recent adaptive immune response
- Part II's ten chapters systematically explore the role of the immune system in health and disease. It explores a wide range of topics including details of human resistance to microbial invasion: the latest approaches to vaccination, including DNA vaccines; the role of the immune system in cancer; and how the immune system will react should we ever be subjected to a bioterrorist attack
- The book treats the immune system's role in diseases and disorders like AIDS, cancer, autoimmunity, rheumatoid arthritis, organ transplantation, allergies and asthma, and various immunopathologies and infections caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi
- The book discusses the latest approaches to vaccination, including DNA vaccines, how they work, and why they don't at times
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.Readership: General readers affected by the disorders discussed in the book.
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William R. Clark, Professor and Chair Emeritus of Immunology, Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
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Part I: How The Immune System Works
1: What Is An Immune System?
2: Antibodies
3: How Do Antibodies Work?
4: T Cells: The Second Arm of Adaptive Immunity
Part II The Immune System in Health and Disease
5: The Immune Response to Infectious Disease: All Out War!
6: When the Immune System is the Problem, and Not The Solution: Microbial Immunopathology
7: Vaccines: How They Work, Why They Sometimes Don't, And What We Can Do About It
8: When the Walls Come Tumbling Down: HIV/AIDS
9: When the Walls Come Tumbling Down: Primary Immune Deficiency Diseases
10: When the Immune System is the Problem, Not The Solution: Hypersensitivity and Allergy
11: The Immune System and Cancer
12: Autoimmunity
13: Organ Transplantation
14: First Defense: The Immune System and Bioterrorism
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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