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An antibody (Ab), also known as an immunoglobulin (Ig), is a large, Y-shaped protein used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as pathogenic bacteria and viruses. The antibody recognizes a unique molecule of the pathogen, called an antigen. Each tip of the "Y" of an antibody contains a paratope that is specific for one particular epitope on an antigen, allowing these two structures to bind together with precision. Using this binding mechanism, an antibody can tag a microbe or an infected cell for attack by other parts of the immune system, or can neutralize it directly.
The immune system is a network of biological processes that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to parasitic worms, as well as cancer cells and objects such as wood splinters, distinguishing them from the organism's own healthy tissue. Many species have two major subsystems of the immune system. The innate immune system provides a preconfigured response to broad groups of situations and stimuli. The adaptive immune system provides a tailored response to each stimulus by learning to recognize molecules it has previously encountered. Both use molecules and cells to perform their functions.
Immunology is a branch of biology and medicine that covers the study of immune systems in all organisms.
Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time, and as of 2000, he was rated the 16th most important scientist in history. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize. Of these, he is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.
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An epitope, also known as antigenic determinant, is the part of an antigen that is recognized by the immune system, specifically by antibodies, B cells, or T cells. The part of an antibody that binds to the epitope is called a paratope. Although epitopes are usually non-self proteins, sequences derived from the host that can be recognized are also epitopes.
William Alfred Fowler (9 August 1911 – 14 March 1995) was an American nuclear physicist, later astrophysicist, who, with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is known for his theoretical and experimental research into nuclear reactions within stars and the energy elements produced in the process and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper.
Plasma cells, also called plasma B cells or effector B cells, are white blood cells that originate in the lymphoid organs as B lymphocytes and secrete large quantities of proteins called antibodies in response to being presented specific substances called antigens. These antibodies are transported from the plasma cells by the blood plasma and the lymphatic system to the site of the target antigen, where they initiate its neutralization or destruction. B cells differentiate into plasma cells that produce antibody molecules closely modeled after the receptors of the precursor B cell.
The side-chain theory is a theory proposed by Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915) to explain the immune response in living cells. Ehrlich theorized from very early in his career that chemical structure could be used to explain why the immune response occurred in reaction to infection. He believed that toxins and antitoxins were chemical substances at a time when very little was known about their nature. The theory explains the interaction of antibodies and antigens in the blood, and how antibodies are produced.
In immunology, clonal selection theory explains the functions of cells of the immune system (lymphocytes) in response to specific antigens invading the body. The concept was introduced by Australian doctor Frank Macfarlane Burnet in 1957, in an attempt to explain the great diversity of antibodies formed during initiation of the immune response. The theory has become the widely accepted model for how the human immune system responds to infection and how certain types of B and T lymphocytes are selected for destruction of specific antigens.
Herman Russell Branson was an American physicist, chemist, best known for his research on the alpha helix protein structure, and was also the president of two colleges. He received a fellowship from the Rosenwald Foundation.
Immunogenicity is the ability of a foreign substance, such as an antigen, to provoke an immune response in the body of a human or other animal. It may be wanted or unwanted:
Morris Goodman was an American scientist known for his work in molecular evolution and molecular systematics. Goodman was a distinguished professor at the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics at Wayne State University School of Medicine, editor-in-chief of the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, and a member of the anthropology section of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
Alfred Nisonoff (1923–2001) was a 20th-century chemist who helped to experimentally determine the molecular structure of the antibody, and, as a result, made major contributions to the field of immunology. Nisonoff's monograph, “The Antibody Molecule,” was the most important and in-depth paper on the antibody during his time.
Charles DuBois Coryell was an American chemist who was one of the discoverers of the element promethium.
Antigen-antibody interaction, or antigen-antibody reaction, is a specific chemical interaction between antibodies produced by B cells of the white blood cells and antigens during immune reaction. The antigens and antibodies combine by a process called agglutination. It is the fundamental reaction in the body by which the body is protected from complex foreign molecules, such as pathogens and their chemical toxins. In the blood, the antigens are specifically and with high affinity bound by antibodies to form an antigen-antibody complex. The immune complex is then transported to cellular systems where it can be destroyed or deactivated.
Herman Nathaniel Eisen was an American immunologist and cancer researcher. He served on the faculty at New York University School of Medicine in the early 1950s, became the Chief of Dermatology at the Washington University School of Medicine in 1955, and was a founding member of the MIT Center for Cancer Research. Eisen retired and assumed professor emeritus status in 1989, but continued to be active as a researcher; he was working on a manuscript the day he died in 2014.
Arthur M. Silverstein is an American immunologist and science historian who has written extensively on the history of immunology. He is Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmic Immunology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he spent 25 years on the faculty in the Department of Ophthalmology and was also affiliated with its Institute of the History of Medicine.
Tse Wen Chang is an immunology researcher, whose career spans across academia and industry. His early research involving the Immunoglobulin E (IgE) pathway and antibody-based therapeutics lead to the development of omalizumab, a medication that has been approved for the treatment of severe allergic asthma and severe chronic spontaneous urticaria. Chang is a cofounder of Tanox, a biopharmaceutical company specialized in anti-IgE therapies for the treatment of allergic diseases. After Tanox's tripartite partnership with Genentech and Novartis was forged in 1996, Chang returned to his alma mater, the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and served as the Dean (1996–1999) of the College of Life Sciences. Chang was appointed by the Taiwanese government as President of the Development Center for Biotechnology (DCB) in 2000, and served as a Science and Technology Advisor of the Executive Yuan from 2002 to 2006. From 2006 to 2016, he was tenured as Distinguished Research Fellow at the Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica. He founded Immunwork, Inc. in 2014.
Felix Michael Haurowitz was a Czech-American physician and biochemist.
References
- 1 2 "David Pressman '37 Now Doing Research in New York" (PDF). Caltech Alumni News. December 1947. p. 19. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ↑ Pauling, Linus; Campbell, Dan H.; Pressman, David (July 1943). "The Nature of the Forces Between Antigen and Antibody and of the Precipitation Reaction". Physiological Reviews. 23 (3): 203–219. doi:10.1152/physrev.1943.23.3.203 . Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ↑ "Campbell, Pressman, Pauling and the Binding of Antibodies". The Pauling Blog. Oregon State University. 9 April 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ↑ scarc (27 September 2016). "Dan Campbell and David Pressman study antigens and antibodies" . Retrieved 27 September 2016.
- 1 2 Steiner, LA; Knight, KL (15 August 2001). "In memoriam Alfred Nisonoff 1923-2001". Journal of Immunology. 167 (4): 1855–6. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.167.4.1855 . PMID 11489960.
- ↑ Eisen, Herman N.; Schlesinger, Sondra (21 March 2015). "Remembrance of Immunology Past: Conversations with Herman Eisen". Annual Review of Immunology. 33 (1): 1–28. doi: 10.1146/annurev-immunol-111214-122349 . PMID 25581308.
- ↑ Silverstein, Arthur M. (1995). Gallagher, Richard B.; Gilder, Jean; Nossal, Gustav J.V.; Salvatore, Gaetano (eds.). Immunology the Making of a Modern Science. Burlington: Elsevier. ISBN 9780080534534.
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