Immunology and Serology PRELIM

LECTURE-TOPIC 1

• can be defined as the study of a host’s reactions when foreign substances are introduced into the body.
Such foreign substances that induce a host response are called antigens.

• the scientific study or diagnostic examination of blood serum, especially with regard to the response of
the immune system to pathogens or introduced substances.

• foreign substances that induce a host response.

• refers to a substance that reacts with antibody or sensitized T cells but may not be able to evoke an
immune response in the first place.

• Immunogens refers to a substance that is capable of inducing an immune response

• Thus, all immunogens are antigens but not all antigens are immunogens

• Substances produced in response to antigenic stimulation that as capable of specific interaction with
provoking immunogen

• the condition of being resistant to infection.

Role of Immune System

a. Defending the body against infections
b. Recognizing and responding to foreign antigens
c. Defending the body against the development of tumors

• The function of the immune system is to recognize self from non-self and to defend the body against
non-self. Such a system is necessary for survival.

• The first recorded attempts to deliberately induce immunity date back to the 1500s when the Chinese
inhaled powder made from smallpox scabs in order to produce protection against this dreaded disease.
This practice of deliberately exposing an individual to material from smallpox lesions was known as
variolation.

Variolation

• method of scratching the skin and applying pulverized powder from a smallpox scab
• fresh material taken from a skin lesion of a person recovering from smallpox was subcutaneously injected
with a lancet in to the arm or leg of a nonimmune person.

• Further refinements did not occur until the late 1700s when an English country doctor by the name of
Edward Jenner was able to successfully prevent infection with smallpox by injecting a more harmless
substance—cowpox—from a disease affecting cows.

PREPARED BY: ROMILET D. DEL ROSARIO, RMT 1

 Immunology and Serology PRELIM
LECTURE-TOPIC 1

• After observing the fact that milkmaids who were exposed to cowpox had apparent immunity to smallpox,
he deliberately injected individuals with material from a cowpox lesion and then exposed them to
smallpox. He thus proved that immunity to cowpox, a very mild disease, provided protection against
smallpox. The phenomenon in which exposure to one agent produces protection against another agent
is known as cross-immunity.

• Father of immunology
• observed by chance that older bacterial cultures would not cause disease in chickens. Subsequent
injections of more virulent organisms had no effect on the birds that had been previously exposed to the
older cultures. In this manner, the first attenuated vaccine was discovered; this event can be considered
the birth of immunology.
• It is thought that Pasteur discovered the effect of attenuation by accident during his studies of chicken
cholera. After returning from a summer vacation in 1881, he noticed that he had left a culture of the
bacteria that cause chicken cholera, now known as Pasteurella multocida, on his laboratory bench.
Instead of disposing of the aged culture, he decided to use it to inoculate chickens. The chickens did not
develop the disease; furthermore, when Pasteur later inoculated them with a fresh culture of the bacteria,
they proved to be resistant to cholera.
Attenuation
• means to make a pathogen less virulent; it takes place through heat, aging, or chemical means.
Vaccination
• from vacca, the Latin word for “cow.”
Vaccine
• is an antigen suspension derived from a pathogen. Vaccines are routinely administered to healthy
individuals to stimulate an immune response to an infectious disease. Vaccination therefore is a form of
immunoprophylaxis, or the prevention of disease through immunization.

SIGNIFICANT MILESTONES IN IMMUNOLOGY

Date Scientist(s) Discovery
A.D.1500 Chinese Inhalation of dried powders from crusts of smallpox lesions

1718 Lady Montagu Injection of material from crusts/fluids from small pox
blisters
1798 Edward Jenner
1862 Haeckel Phagocytosis
1880- Luis Pasteur Live, attenuated chicken cholera and anthrax vaccines,
1881 rabies vaccine
1883- Ellie Metchnikoff Cellular theory of immunity through phagocytosis
1905 demonstrated that certain blood cells ingest foreign
material
1890 Emil Von Von Behring, Humoral theory of immunity proposed
Kitasata Emil Von Behring had the distinction of being awarded as
the first immunology related Nobel Prize for his works on
serum therapy
1891 Robert Koch

PREPARED BY: ROMILET D. DEL ROSARIO, RMT 2

 Immunology and Serology PRELIM
LECTURE-TOPIC 1
1894 Jules Burdet
1897 Robert Kaus
1900 Paul Ehrlich
1902 Portier, Richet
1903 Maurice Arthus
1903 White and Douglas
1913 Charles Richet
1928 Alexander Flemming
1930 Karl Landsteiner
1938 Marrack Hypothesis of antigen-antibody binding
1944 Hypothesis of allograft rejection
1949 Salk, Sabin
1951 Reed
1953 Graft-versus-host reaction
1957 Burnet Clonal selection theory
1957 Interferon
1958- Human leukocyte antigens (HLAs)
1962
1964- T-cell and B-cell cooperation in
1968 immune response
1972 Identification of antibody molecule
1972 Gerald Edelman, Rodney
Porter
1980 George Snell, Jean Dausset,
Baruj Benaceraf
1984 Niels Jerne Immunoregulation
Georges Koehler, Cesar Monoclonal antibody (Hybridoma technology)
Milstein
1985- Identification of genes for T cell
1987 receptor
1986 Monoclonal hepatitis B vaccine
1986 Mosmann Th1 versus Th2 model of T
helper cell function
1987 Susumu Tonegawa
awarded the Nobel Prize for his 1978 discovery of the
genetic principles underlying the
generation of antibodies with different specificities
1960 MacFarlane Burnet, Peter
Medawar
1977 Rosalyn Yalow
1996- Identification of toll-like
1998 receptors
2001 FOXP3, the gene directing
regulatory T cell development
2005 Frazer Development of human papillomavirus vaccine
2008 Francoise Barre- Sinoussi,

PREPARED BY: ROMILET D. DEL ROSARIO, RMT 3

 Immunology and Serology PRELIM
LECTURE-TOPIC 1
Luc Montagnier
Robert Gallo

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PREPARED BY: ROMILET D. DEL ROSARIO, RMT 4