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The Immune System
The immune system protects our body from infection. Everyone has had a cold (caused by viruses) and most of us have had an infection for which we took antibiotics. You never get the same cold twice (amazing isn't it) because the immune system remembers, this is also the basis of vaccines. Most vaccines give you a weak form of a virus that will cause immunity without an infection or parts of the virus / bacteria that will allow the body to recognize and fight an infection before it becomes a problem.

The immune system can recognize some cancers. In this section you will learn some basics about the immune system and about how the immune system can (possibly) be used to fight cancer.

The picture to your right shows a tumor cell disintegrating after an attack by a T cell. Two additional, intact tumor cells are shown in. The successful cytotoxic T lymphocyte may now make these cells its targets. 		SEM of T Cell Attacking Tumor
Cytotoxic Lymphocyte Destroying a Tumor Cell. ©
John Ding-E Young, Chau-Ching Lin, and Gilla Kaplan
authors. Licensed for use, ASM MicrobeLibrary.org.
Page last updated 3/25/09