The Effect of Interferon on Infection and Disease
Interferon is a natural occurring substance produced by the body in response to infection and disease. It is a protein belonging to the cytokines family and they are a form of chemical messengers that send signals from one cell to another. Manufactured forms of interferon have been shown to help the body's immune system fight off disease more effectively.
The interferons we use are made with recombinant DNA techniques. This means that we put the genes for interferons into bacteria so that they now have the ability to make them. With the new ability the bacteria starts to produce the interferons for us to harvest.
How does interferon work?
Interferons are a part of the immune system. This system involves the body's ability to distinguish cells that are part of the body from those that have found their way in and are harmful. Most of these unwanted substances are viruses, bacteria, and other type of disease causing organisms.
When a cell in our body has become infected or has become cancerous it’s surface changes. This is how the immune system can tell good cells from bad ones (the markings on the surface.) Once a bad cell has been recognized our bodies sends cells to destroy the damaged cell and prevent the spread of whatever caused the damage in the first place. The next step our body takes is to have the affected cells start to produce interferons and other helpful substances. These help to fight off unwanted organisms, and also to warn other cells of the invaders and prepare them to resist them therefore preventing the spread of disease.
How did we discover them and what kinds are there?
Interferons were first discovered as a result of their ability to prevent viral replication, by Alick Issacs. After some experimenting with heat damaged flu virus he notice something interfered with the replication of the virus in cells. He called this substance Interferons. Since them additional research has determined that interferons also affect tumor growth and can be used to fight certain types of cancers.
Many different sources say different things about the types of existing and available interferons, so I chose to list the most common ones that I found. They are:
Interferon-alpha
Interferon-beta
Interferon-gamma
Alpha interferons are used to treat several diseases, including some types of cancer, such as hairy cell leukemia, melanoma, follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma.
The B cells, T cells, Macrophage, and Antibodies are all a very large part of the immune system. There are two types of T cells, killer and helper T cells. Killer T cells find and destroy cells infected with bacteria, and helper T cells control the activity of other cells in the immune system. Then, B cells are considered the “clean up crew,” attacking any bacteria or viruses the T cell left behind. They also make antibodies, which are essential for trapping invading viruses and
Scientists are stumped as to the development and nature of proteinaceous infectious particles. Neither virus nor bacteria, these prions, are believed to cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), rare diseases said to be 100% fatal, without possessing nucleic acids. Their unhindered growth is thought to be the cause for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJD), scrapie and other TSE, diseases characterized by the brain microscopically turning into sponge-like matter. There are no cures or effective treatments available today because drawbacks constantly prevent the development of efficient therapy. Studies continue to slowly progress, hoping to find methods to immunize against more prion diseases.
The job of the immune system is to keep “foreign” invaders out of the body, or if one gets in, to seek it out and kill it. These foreign invaders are called pathogens, which are tiny organisms that can cause an infection in the body. Pathogens can be bacteria, parasites, and fungi (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/immuneSystem/pages/whatisimmunesystem.aspx).
The immune system acts as a defense system against unwanted microbes and pathogens in a healthy human being. It prevents them from entering the body, or if they have already entered the body, it stops them from doing harm to the body. The three main tasks of the immune system are neutralizing pathogens that have entered the body and then remove them, recognizing and removing harmful substances from the body, and fighting against its body’s cells that have been altered due to an illness (PubMed Health).
The function of the immune system is it helps play a vital part of our everyday lives. It helps protect our bodies where ever we go. Our immune systems help defend our bodies against germs and microorganisms. The immune system is made up of various special cells, tissues, organs and proteins. This special system does an amazing job of keeping our bodies healthy and in good shape from different diseases and infections.
The lymphatic system is made up of organs and tissues, that defends the body against infectious diseases, while also returning tissue fluids to the body’s bloodstream. The lymphatic system prevents the body from disease and infection by producing white blood cells. The lymphatic system helps our immune
during RNAi. RNA interference is now applied in many forms of biological science from, Physiology to Biotechnology.
A virus is an infective agent that typically consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat. It is too small to be seen by light microscopy and is able to multiply only within the living cells of a host. One virus that has received global attention over the last thirty years or so is the HIV/AIDS virus. This virus attacks the body’s immune system, which in turn stops the body’s ability to be able to fight off illness. Thus, people who contract HIV/AIDS are susceptible to death by sicknesses that a healthy individual is able to recover from easily.
The first discovery was made in 1952, in the developing field of virology. Virology is the study of viruses and how they behave. To develop the vaccines for the viruses, researchers infected the HeLa cells with many types of infections, such as measles, mumps, and the infamous poliomyelitis virus, also known as Polio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose mission is to save lives and protect people’s health security, Polio is a "crippling and potentially deadly infectious disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person invading the brain and spinal cord and causing paralysis" (Freeman). Jonas Salk, who was a virologist at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), used inactivated viruses (virus particles grown in culture and then killed by a form of heat) to create a polio vaccine. Salk drew blood from about two million children, which the NFIP checked for immunization.Through the collection of many HeLa cells and trial and error, the polio vaccine wa...
Our immune system protects our bodies from pathogens like bacteria and viruses very efficiently in most cases. One big question that has come up is why does the immune system not respond to cancerous cells in the same way? Why are cancer cells not eradicated like other dangerous foreign cells? This seems very strange, especially since the immune system has cells that are specific to destroying cancer cells and virus-infected cells, called natural killer cells. To begin to answer this question it is useful to examine cancer cells and their interactions with the immune system in more detail.
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retro virus that causes AIDS. HIV is a virus that can only be contracted between human to human. HIV weakens your immune system because this virus is destroying cells that fight diseases and infection in your body. A virus can only produce itself by taking over a cell in the body of its h...
...mptoms and known pattern of disease. Experiments by scientists, Nicolle and Le Bailly in Paris, were the earliest explanations that influenza was caused by a filter-passing virus. They proved that influenza was due to a submicroscopic infectious agent and not a bacteria. Scientific experiments, such as these, had immediate preventative applications. They were part of an effort to create a vaccine that would prevent the influenza. Vaccines were considered the best preventative treatment at the time. Several scientists tried to create effective vaccines, each with a different understanding of the virus. Dr. Rosenow invented a vaccine to target the multiple bacterial agents involved from the serum of patients. He aimed to raise the immunity against the bacteria, and not the cause of the initial symptoms (Virginia).
Vaccines are a type of substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and help
The drug azidothymidine has proved very useful in the war. against the AIDS epidemic. Scientists all over the globe are currently working on a cure for AIDS and perhaps one day they will succeed. All these symptoms, causes, and treatments describe the deadly AIDS. virus.
The immune system is a fascinating structure it defends the body against foreign invaders like bacteria, viruses and parasites. There are two primary forms that make up the immune system they are, innate and adaptive systems. Both the innate and adaptive system plays a large role in the immune system. The innate is the primary system to defend against foreign materials and the adaptive is the secondary system that responds to specific issues.