The Beautiful Cure

The Beautiful Cure makes you smarter by showing you how your immune system works and how recent advancements in our understanding of it can help us improve our health like never before.

Vaccines are one of the most important medical advances of the modern era and they have saved countless lives. But did you know that we actually have had them in some form since the 1700s?

After observing milkmaids with cowpox who seemed to have an immunity to smallpox, Edward Jenner came up with the idea to inject cowpox pus in hopes it would protect one from smallpox. It worked, and in 1796, the first vaccine was created.

While Jenner took advantage of our adaptive immune system to create a vaccine, the science behind how it worked didn’t emerge until much later.

Two types white blood cells, T and B cells, have receptors that link with other proteins to perform various tasks. When these cells link to something that is foreign to them, the cell gets “turned on” and kills the infected cell or germ. After this contact, the cell will duplicate into more cells that “remember” that threat and are ready to fight it when they see it again. This is the adaptive immune response and it’s what vaccines activate in your body.

But if we attack anything foreign, wouldn’t our body have a reaction to every little thing that came in, like a new food? That’s where innate immunity helps. Charles Janeway proposed that there must also be a second signal before an immune response is kicked off.

He theorized that there are receptors on the T and B cells that interlock specifically with infected cells and germs. This goes to show that while the adaptive immune response recognizes new threats, our body comes equipped with natural receptors to protect us from certain invaders.

Cytokines are special proteins made by cells that serve as molecular messengers in the body to coordinate immune responses. There are different kinds, and each has a unique purpose. They communicate with various cells throughout the body and tell when we should or shouldn’t start an immune response. They also have a lot of potential to be used in medications. We now are using cytokines to help fight and kill cancer cells as well as treat both hepatitis B and C. But problems can occur when you have an overproduction of these important messengers, resulting in autoimmune disease. One example of this is rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that causes joint damage and severe pain. Fortunately, we now have a weapon against rheumatoid arthritis, and it’s the opposite of a cytokine: the anti-cytokine. Scientist Sir Marc Feldman discovered an overabundance of a specific cytokine…