BookMatt Richtel.
Summary: The immune system is a guardian vigilantly fighting illness, healing wounds, maintaining order and balance, and keeping us alive. Richtel interweaves the stories of four people: a terminal cancer patient who rises from the grave; a medical marvel who defies HIV; two women with autoimmunity who discover their own bodies have turned against them. As he leads us from the Black Plague to twentieth-century breakthroughs in vaccination and antibiotics, to the cutting-edge laboratories that are revolutionizing immunology, his four patients each illuminates an essential facet of our "elegant defense."--Adapted from jacket
Contents:
Part I. Lives in the balance. The ties that bind
Jason
Bob
Linda and Merredith
Part II. The immune system and the festival of life. The bird, dog, starfish, and magic bullet
The festival
Festival crashers
The mystery organ
The B-word
T cells and B cells
Vaccines
The infinity machine
Transplant
The immune system's fingerprint
Inflammation
Fever
Flash Gordon
The harmonious way
Three wise men and a monoclonal antibody
A second immune system
Part III. Bob. Sex machine
GRID
The phone call
CD4 and CD8
Magic
The prime
Part IV. Linda and Merredith. Linda
The wolf
Invisible evidence
Best of both worlds (sort of)
Merredith
Should you pick your nose?
Microbiome
Stress
Sleep
Part V. Jason. A word about cancer
Laughter and tears
The Lazarus mouse
Wound healing
Programmed death
The breakthrough
Jason races time
Shepherd of death
Trials, personal and clinical
The other shoe
Part VI. Homecoming. Bob
Linda
Jan and Ron
Jason down the white tunnel
Jason rises
Apollo 11
Home
Jason's way
The meanings of life
The meaning of Jason.
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