BIOL 2011L Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Transplant Rejection, Immunodeficiency, Organ Transplantation
Document Summary
Immunology is a branch of biology that covers the study of immune systems in all organisms. The russian biologist ilya ilyich mechnikov advanced studies on immunology and received the nobel prize for his work in 1908. He pinned small thorns into starfish larvae and noticed unusual cells surrounding the thorns. This was the active response of the body trying to maintain its integrity. It was mechnikov who first observed the phenomenon of phagocytosis, in which the body defends itself against a foreign body, and coined the term. Immunology has applications in numerous disciplines of medicine, particularly in the fields of organ transplantation, oncology, virology, bacteriology, parasitology, psychiatry, and dermatology. Prior to the designation of immunity from the etymological root immunis, which is latin for. exempt; early physicians characterized organs that would later be proven as essential components of the immune system.