BPRC Research | Immune System | How is it organised?
The patrolling cells of the immune system constantly report to small bean-shaped lymph nodes spread throughout your body. Here, in particular, the immune cells communicate with one another in special areas. This communication helps to ensure that only responses to non-self molecules are permitted, and to ensure that when a pathogen is present a strong immune response occurs.
Another important function of this communication is to ensure that the immune system “remembers” each pathogen. This means that if it encounters the pathogen again a much faster and more effective immune response can occur. This works better for some diseases than for others. For example most infections with the measles virus leave a very good immunological memory. This memory reacts to any later encounters with the measles virus and ensures that we do not get infected again. For reasons that we don’t fully understand, this does not work with all diseases. For example, in huge areas of the world, children repeatedly get infected with malaria. They do not develop an immunological memory that is strong enough to control later malaria infections.
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Detail from a stamp commemorating the start of polio vaccination in 1955 |
Vaccines work by giving the immune system the information it needs to make the “keys” to fit the molecular “locks” of the pathogen. However, in contrast to an infection with a pathogen, they give this information in a non-dangerous way.