The immune system comprises organs, tissues, cells and molecules, which protect the body against pathogens.
Detailed description
The biological defense system can be separated into an innate and an adaptive part. The innate immune system developed early in the phylogeny of living things. The adaptive immune system adjusts to new or modified pathogens. Both parts collaborate closely. Moreover, the immune system can destroy abnormal or defective cells of the own body.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 1.5 million people die each year from tuberculosis (TB), a disease of the lungs caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. People with a
This is what ideal medicine would look like: Doctors could specifically alter molecular processes in diseased cells in the body and thus causally cure patients. This is the goal of the German Centers
The human immunodeficiency virus HIV-1 is able to infect various tissues in humans. Once inside the cells, the virus integrates its genome into the cellular genome and establishes persistent
Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation for the treatment of severe blood cancers is the only medical intervention that has cured two people living with HIV in the past. An international group of
The hospital germ Pseudomonas aeruginosa forms biofilms, a kind of mucus layer, to protect itself from attack by the immune system or antibiotics. To form this sticky layer, as well as to successfully
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections remain a major global health problem – according to the World Health Organization (WHO) there are around 300 million HBV carriers worldwide. Current treatments
