This course covers cells and tissues of the immune system, lymphocyte development, the structure and function of antigen receptors, the cell biology of antigen processing and presentation, including molecular structure and assembly of MHC molecules, the biology of cytokines, leukocyte-endothelial interactions, and the pathogenesis of immunologically mediated diseases. The course is structured as a series of lectures and tutorials in which clinical cases are discussed with faculty tutors.
Lecturers
Frederick W. Alt, Marcus Altfeld, Paul Anderson, Jon C. Aster, Hugh Auchincloss, Steven P. Balk, Samuel M. Behar, Richard S. Blumberg, Francisco Bonilla, Bobby Cherayil, Benjamin Davis, David Hafler, Nir Harcohen, Bruce Horwitz, David M. Lee, Andrew Lichtman, Diane Mathis, Richard Mitchell, Hidde Ploegh, Emmett Schmidt, Arlene Sharpe, Megan Sykes, Shannon Turley, Dale T. Umetsu, Ulrich von Andrian, Bruce Walker, Kai Wucherpfennig, Ramnik Xavier, Sarah Henrickson

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"A recent case study reports the apparent benefits of classical homeopathy for people with varying severities of psoriasis. Their conclusion: a more holistic approach that goes beyond skin clearance might be one solution for certain sufferers of the disease. Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting more than 125 million people worldwide. In addition to its effect on the skin, psoriasis can take a psychological toll due to its appearance. And if tied to systemic inflammation, it can even cause serious morbidity or death. Modern treatment options for psoriasis, such as the use of biologics, are designed to block the inflammatory factors that give rise to disease symptoms. While generally effective, these agents can actually weaken a patient’s immune system, making their prolonged use risky. That has many researchers exploring alternative routes for treatment that go beyond clear skin to achieve a better quality of life..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This presentation provides an introduction to the immune system and how it’s activated. In continuation of this we’ll discuss how inflammatory beta cell destruction comes about in type 1 diabetes. Furthermore we’ll discuss how beta cell failure occur in type 2 diabetes.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Although traumatic events in childhood can lead to psychiatric disorders later in life, the biological origins for this relationship aren’t well defined. Overactivation of the immune system has been implicated in a range of psychiatric conditions, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorder. Despite this well-known association, the events initially causing this activation remain a mystery. But a team of researchers in the Netherlands has uncovered a potential missing link: they found that traumatic events in childhood can cause inflammation that lasts into adolescence. This association is important because prior work has tied inflammation to the development of mood and anxiety disorders. The researchers surveyed one thousand teenagers affected by childhood trauma at ages 12, 14, 16 and 19. In addition, immune system activation at age 16 was evaluated by measuring high-sensitivity C reactive protein, a tell-tale sign of inflammation in the body..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The symbiotic microbial community that many animals have floating freely in their gut is critical to their health and well-being. But some insects, like cereal weevils, take this a step further and host bacteria inside their own cells. These endosymbiotic bacteria reside in massive, specialized cells organized in an organ called the bacteriome. Previous studies have suggested that the cereal weevil bacteriome participates in immune responses. But how, or if, the bacteriome protects its resident bacteria from that immune activity remains unclear. To answer this, researchers activated the cereal weevil innate immune system with pathogen protein fragments and examined the gene expression changes in the bacteriome and its residents. Rather than differentiate between pathogens and symbionts, the cereal weevils protected their endosymbionts with physical separation..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This lesson describes the major components and functions of the immune system and the role of engineers in keeping the body healthy (e.g., vaccinations and antibiotics, among other things). This lesson also discusses how an astronaut's immune system is suppressed during spaceflight due to stress and other environmental factors.

Is sleep for rest? To conserve energy? For development? To cool the brain? To warm it? To boost the immune system? To learn and memorize? Or to unlearn, ridding our brains of excess mental baggage? All of these ideas have been proposed, leading to the suggestion that insomniacs might do better to count sleep theories instead of sheep. Join renowned neuroscientist Ralph Greenspan of The Neurosciences Institute to explore the latest research into the question of why we sleep. (59 minutes)

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"B-cells are a type of white blood cell that play an important role in the immune system, and some of these cells secrete a protein known as IL-35, which has been shown to regulate inflammation. Because the microorganisms living in the digestive system can have critical effects on the immune system of their host, scientists recently set out to uncover the link between these microbes and IL-35 production. The team found that certain microbes inhabiting the guts of mice, such as Lactobacillus bacteria, can promote the generation of IL-35-secreting B-cells and that they do this by producing 3-indoleacetic acid (IAA) in the presence of lipopolysaccharides. They also found that IL-35 may help prevent mice fed a high-fat diet from becoming obese and observed lower levels of IAA in obese mice than in nonobese mice..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

The purpose of this assignment is to educate and engage students in understanding the immune system's role in maintaining health and to apply this knowledge by designing a scientifically informed recipe card. This card will feature an immune-boosting recipe with carefully selected ingredients backed by immunological research, with the aim of promoting a deeper understanding of the connection between nutrition, immunity, and overall well-being.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Residing in the stomachs of over half the human population, the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, also known as H pylori, has become a major cause of digestive complications, ranging from peptic ulcers to stomach cancer. But despite this link, scientists still aren’t sure how these disorders arise after infection. Now, researchers have homed in on a single protein produced by H pylori that seems to rev up the immune system, causing a state of inflammation that may pave the way for cancer growth or other types of gut breakdown. The protein, HP1454, is naturally released from H pylori -- both actively by living cells and passively as cells die. The scientists found that when special immune cells known as T cells encounter this secreted HP1454, they kick into action, mounting an inflammatory response. This relationship was particularly strong in people with stomach cancer..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students learn the purpose of a fever in the body's immune system and how it protects the body against germs. The students continue to explore temperature by creating a model thermometer and completing a temperature conversion worksheet. They come to see how engineers are involved in designing helpful medical instruments such as thermometers.

This lesson opens with students looking for evidence that growth is occurring in living organisms. Students will use a group of pictures of an animal at different stages of its life to find evidence of the changes that occur.

This interactive module introduces the anatomy of the immune system and walks through the timeline of a typical immune response.

The timeline includes the differences between the first time a pathogen is encountered versus subsequent infections, including an explanation of how vaccines work. Different tabs, videos, images, questions, and a detailed glossary of terms allow this resource to be explored at varying levels of depth depending on the class. Refer to the “Educator Resources” tab in the Click & Learn for implementation suggestions.

The glossary and illustrations in the Click & Learn are also provided as slide decks; you may make copies of these slides and adapt them to your classroom.

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.

This sequence explores the elements of innate and acquired immune defense mecahnisms, the cells involved, their development and maturation, and biomolecular cellular communication mechanisms required to successfully fight off infection.

This is a module framework. It can be viewed online or downloaded as a zip file.

As taught Autumn semester 2009.

Infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The body fights infection through the functions of the immune system, whose power has been harnessed by the development of vaccination (immunisation).

Suitable for study at: Undergraduate levels 1 and 2.

Dr Ian Todd, School of Molecular Medical Sciences.

Dr Ian Todd is Associate Professor & Reader in Cellular Immunopathology at The University of Nottingham. After reading Biochemistry at The University of Oxford, he carried out research for his PhD in Immunology at University College London. He then undertook post-doctoral research at The Oregon Health Sciences University and The Middlesex Hospital Medical School. His main research interest is in the molecular and cellular bases of autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a recipient of the Lord Dearing Award for Teaching & Learning.

Important Copyright Information:

All images, tables and figures in this resource were reproduced from 'Lecture Notes Immunology' April 2010, 6th Edition, published by Wiley-Blackwell and with full permission of the co-author and faculty member, Dr Ian Todd.

No image, table or figure in this resource can be reproduced without prior permission from publishers Wiley-Blackwell.

This video on HIV in Global Health introduces the student to the origin, and major milestones in the HIV pandemic. Students will learn about scientific breakthroughs in HIV research including important trials. The video also provides insight into public health initiatives to limit the pandemic such as ART programs and different testing strategies. Finally the video sums up future challenges for ending the HIV pandemic.

The KNOW Curriculum is one of several HIV/STD curriculum options available to school districts in Washington state. The following documents provide school districts with resources to assist in identifying and/or developing an effective HIV/STD prevention program for their students. Included in the OSPI-developed curriculum are HIV/AIDS prevention materials and considerations for teacher selection and training as well as parent and community involvement.

Available documents:
Grades 5-6, English and Spanish
Grades 7-8, English and Spanish

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a chronic immune-mediated liver disease that’s often treated with the steroid prednisone. Gut microbiome disruption and immune follicular T helper (Tfh) cells play important roles in AIH pathogenesis and progression but how microbes and Tfh cells interact in the context of AIH and prednisone treatment remains unclear. A recent study investigated the effects of both probiotic and prednisone treatment on Tfh cells and AIH indicators. In both human patients and mice, the probiotic Lactobacillus significantly increased the abundance of beneficial gut bacteria and in humans, Lactobacillus enhanced prednisone’s ameliorative effects on clinical AIH indices, such as the serum levels of liver damage–related enzymes. In mice with experimental AIH (EAH), Lactobacillus and prednisone both exerted similar effects, decreasing intestine and liver injury and Lactobacillus again improved prednisone efficacy, reducing the circulating levels of liver damage markers..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Despite being the standard treatment for lung cancers, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are often less effective for patients with EGFR mutations. And these mutations are far from uncommon; 40% of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients have them, but one protein that might play a role in this process is ARID1A. A recent study examined ARID1A expression in a cohort of LUAD patients with or without EGFR mutations. Overall, low ARID1A expression corresponded to increased immune cell infiltration and longer survival times. The data also suggested that ICIs were more effective for LUAD patients with EGFR mutations if they had low ARID1A expression. Mechanistic experiments in cultured EGFR-mutated LUAD cells suggested that reducing ARID1A expression inhibited autophagy. Autophagy is a normal process in healthy cells, but it helps cancer cells evade the immune system. Specifically, reduced ARID1A expression decreased autophagy by activating the EGFR/PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This health education program discusses malaria including the causes, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. It also provides prevention tips for those traveling to countries where malaria is common. This resource is a MedlinePlus Interactive Health Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine, designed and developed by the Patient Education Institute.