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Index
Half-Title
Series
Title
Contents
Preface: Our Hidden Army
Chapter 1: Full Frontal Immunity: The First Line of Defence
Skin deep
Lungs, guts and an accidental shooting
Tears to fear
Underestimated earwax
Chapter 2: A Cast of Cut-throats: The Killer Cells that Keep Us Safe
Ninja neutrophils
Mega-munching macrophages
Natural born killers
Chapter 3: Chit-chatting Chemicals: How Your Immune System Yells
Naughty nitric acid
How heat-shock proteins make us stronger
A symphony of prostaglandins
A storm of cytokines
A deadly complement
Chapter 4: Transplants: Designer Vaginas to Pig Heart Perfection
Why your mind matters
Rejection
Finding your perfect match
All you need is drugs
Supply and demand
From death row to donation
The street value of a pound of flesh
Baby Fae’s broken heart
The cutting edge of transplantation
Chapter 5: Outnumbered: How the Immune System Manages the Body’s Resident Bacteria
The flora of your face
Making our menagerie
Manipulating the microbiome
Chapter 6: Immunological Tango: Sex and Love
Awkward allergies
Sexed to death
Slugs and snails versus sugar and spice
Monkey glands for millionaires and the modern penis
I heart your HLA
Chapter 7: What a Cute Parasite: Pregnancy and the Immune System
How mum passes on her immunity
Infection across the placenta
Waste not, want not
Chapter 8: A Palace for Parasites: Worms and Fleas and Ticks! Oh my!
A plague of little dragons
The logic of brain worms
The scourge of sleeping sickness
Wuchereria bancrofti – a worm with a cloaking device
Worm therapy
Chapter 9: The Adaptive Assassins: Killing Everything from Pink-eye to Plague
How to build a galaxy of antibodies
A sting in the tail
Let’s talk about T cells
Chapter 10: Vaccines: A Triumph of Man’s Manipulation of the Immune System
A one-man vaccine machine
Vaccine type 1: live vaccines
The MMR scandal
Why rumours matter
Vaccine type 2: killed vaccines
Vaccine types 3–6: subunit, conjugate, toxoid and recombinant vaccines
The benefits of blue blood
Chapter 11: Allergies: Everything You’re Itching to Know
IgE and allergy
Why do we get allergies?
Unusual allergies
What can we do about allergies?
Chapter 12: Auto-immunity: The Science of Friendly Fire
Type I diabetes
Type II diabetes
How the immune system and the environment interact
Chapter 13: Defenceless: The Boy Who Lived in a Bubble
Gene therapy
Leukaemia
Immunocompromise
Chapter 14: Cancer: A Deadly ‘Spot the Difference’
Cancer is a multistep process. Discuss.
Cancer drugs – something old, something new
Cancer-killing viruses
Chapter 15: Killer Bugs: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
An Ebola epidemic
Bioterrorism
Chapter 16: Clever Drugs: Immunological Alchemy
Copycats
Haute couture immunotherapy
The cost of haute couture
Avoiding the antibiotic apocalypse
References
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Acknowledgements
Index
Copyright
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