Infection and Immunity Terms

Immunity is the body's capacity to resist a specific infectious agent, arising from prior exposure, vaccination, or the transfer of protective antibodies.

Immunization is the deliberate process of producing protective immunity against a specific infectious disease, most often achieved through vaccination.

Immunocompetence is the capacity of the immune system to recognize and respond effectively to infections and other foreign substances.

Having the ability to produce a normal immune response.

Not one condition but many, and which part of the defense is missing predicts which organisms end up causing trouble.

Immunology is the scientific study of the immune system, including how it defends against infection and contributes to allergic and autoimmune disease.

Change in the body's immune system, caused by agents that activate or suppress its function.

A substance that increases the ability of the immune system to fight infection and disease.

Immunosuppression is a reduced state of immune system activity that can be caused deliberately by treatment or by underlying disease.

Immunosuppressive describes a drug, therapy, or condition that reduces the activity of the body's immune system.

Invasion and multiplication of a microorganism in or on the body.

Useful in the short term and damaging when it persists, inflammation is protective or destructive depending largely on how long it lasts.

Calling a condition inflammatory says how the damage is being done, not what set it off, and those two questions stay separate.

One of three types of virus that cause the illness called influenza (flu).

Named for interfering with viruses, these proteins warn neighboring cells before infection reaches them and cause the flu-like feeling of being ill.

The immune system's targeted assassin, destroying one marked cell at a time while leaving its healthy neighbors untouched.

A substance taken from a marine organism that may be linked to a specific antigen to boost the immune response to that antigen.

Which type is raised matters more than the total, since neutrophils, lymphocytes and eosinophils each point somewhere different.

One word covering two quite different cells: an immature precursor in the marrow, and a mature cell swollen by activation.

These are the cells that remember, which is why a second encounter with the same organism is dealt with far faster than the first.