Immune Extended

Welcome to Immune extended

This website dives into the technical details of topics covered by the book Immune by Philipp Dettmer. The about section explains why I made this site.

Chapters

1. What Is the Immune System?2. What Is There to Defend?3. What Are Your Cells?4. The Empires and Kingdoms of the Immune System5. Meet Your Enemies6. The Desert Kingdom of the Skin7. The Cut8. The Soldiers of the Innate Immune System: Macrophages and Neutrophils9. Inflammation: Playing with Fire10. Naked, Blind, and Afraid: How Do Cells Know Where to Go?11. Smelling the Building Blocks of Life12. The Invisible Killer Army: The Complement System13. Cell Intelligence: The Dendritic Cell14. Superhighways and Megacities15. The Arrival of the Superweapons16. The Largest Library in the Universe17. Cooking Tasty Receptor Recipes18. The Murder University of the Thymus19. Presenting Information on a Gold Platter: Antigen Presentation20. Awakening the Adaptive Immune System: T Cells21. Weapon Factories and Sniper Rifles: B Cells and Antibodies22. The Dance of the T and the B23. Antibodies24. The Swamp Kingdom of the Mucosa25. The Weird and Special Immune System of Your Gut26. What is a Virus?27. The Immune System of Your Lungs28. The Flu-The 'Harmless' Virus You Don't Respect Enough29. Chemical Warfare: Interferons, Interfere!30. The Window into the Soul of Cells31. The Murder Specialists - Killer T Cells32. Natural Killers33. How a Viral Infection is Eradicated34. Shutting the Immune System Down35. Immune - How your Immune system Remembers and Enemy Forever36. Vaccines and Artificial Immunization37. When Your Immune System is Too Weak: HIV and AIDS38. When the Immune System Is Too Aggressive: Allergies39. Parasites and How Your Immune System Might Miss Them40. Autoimmune Disease41. The Hygiene Hypothesis and Old Friends42. How to Boost Your Immune System43. Stress and the Immune system44. Cancer and the Immune System45. The Coronavirus Pandemic

About

I really enjoyed reading Immune, and I think Philipp Dettmer nailed the writing style. Not too technical for curious minds outside of science, however still intriguing for people that have a bit of a background in biology. Whilst reading however, I was thrown back to my Immunology lectures, and how I couldn't remember any specific details of the mechanisms highlighted in the book whilst reading. This gave me the idea to make this site to:

  1. Jog my memory
  2. Provide the info for anyone else that is interested in the detailed mechanisms that power the immune system.
I hope you enjoy reading through my notes. I have organised the notes to be read after each chapter as a continuation of the literature, however feel free to read them all at once.