Immune System and Allergy Terms
Immune cells, immune responses, allergies, vaccines, and immunologic conditions. Browse definitions and meanings below.
What is immunology?
Immunology is the study of how the body defends itself, and of what happens when that defense misfires. It covers recognition of invaders, the response mounted against them, the memory that makes a second encounter faster, and the restraint that stops the response turning on the body itself.
An allergy is that system reacting vigorously to something harmless, such as pollen or a food protein. An autoimmune condition is the same machinery aimed at the body's own tissue. Immunodeficiency is too little response rather than too much. Three very different problems, one shared vocabulary.
Terms in this topic
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A type of monoclonal antibody used in cancer detection or therapy.
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A human monoclonal antibody that is being used to treat colorectal cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.
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A treatment used to help the immune system fight diseases, such as cancer and infections with certain viruses.
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Binding tightly and doing something once bound are separate abilities, and a blocker can excel at the first while deliberately lacking the second.
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The shorter name for a rare inherited triad, still turning up in older records long after the fuller version became standard.
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An antibody that strips lymphocytes out of the blood, used to reset an immune system attacking the nervous system.
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Allegra is the brand name for fexofenadine, a second-generation antihistamine that relieves allergy symptoms with less drowsiness than older allergy medications.
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Something harmless in itself that a particular immune system has learned to treat as a threat.
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A hypersensitive immune reaction to a substance that normally is harmless or would not cause an immune response in most people.
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A cancer vaccine made with a form of the canarypox virus that does not cause disease in people.
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A type of monoclonal antibody being studied in the treatment of multiple myeloma (a cancer that forms in bones) and in the prevention and treatment of bone metastases (cancer that has spread to bone…
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A drug used to treat patients with immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) who do not get better with other forms of treatment.
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Anaphylactic shock is a severe, rapidly developing allergic reaction that can cause airway swelling, a sharp blood pressure drop, and circulatory collapse.
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A monoclonal antibody linked to a toxic substance.
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A vaccine made of antibodies that see other antibodies as the antigen and bind to it.
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Five classes exist, and which one is present says a good deal about where an immune response is and how old it is.
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Treatment that borrows the immune system's own targeting protein, manufactured in bulk and aimed at one chosen molecule.
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A type of immune reaction in which a target cell or microbe is coated with antibodies and killed by certain types of white blood cells.
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The immune system's way of using antibodies as handles, letting killer cells grip a marked target and destroy it.
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An antigen is any substance the immune system recognizes as foreign, prompting it to mount a targeted immune response, including antibody production.