Bitesize Immunology

I am a physician scientist in rheumatology, which is a field of medicine that specializes in autoimmune diseases.

Immunology has a reputation of being complex and hard to understand. I hope this podcast will help people in biology and medical fields to better understand the immune system. I also hope any one with an interest in biology can learn and find inspiration in this podcast. I will try to keep the language jargon-free and simple, and will explain any potentially unfamiliar terms. Plus there will be lots of analogies.

Disclaimer: I work at the University of Washington. However, this is a personal podcast, produced in my own time and is unaffiliated with the University of Washington. This podcast will include educational material only and will not include advice on medical care.

Neutrophils are the first responders of the immune system. I describe what they are and their name origin. Then I discuss neutrophil features in 5 parts including how they sometimes explode kamikaze style!

Part I: First responders

Part II: Bleach spray

Part III: Kamikaze

Part IV: Healers

Part V: Understudied

Lymphocytes have surface receptors that recognize antigens. These receptors have existing templates that are complementary to the 3D structures of antigens from viruses and other pathogens, even before you encounter these pathogens. How is this possible?

In this episode, I answer the question above, plus I talk about the following:

Lymphocyte types including B cells and T cells

The self vs non-self paradigm of the immune system

How can the immune system generate a large pool of lymphocyte receptors without directly encoding them from inherited DNA?

What would it feel like if you were attacked by antibodies? Antibodies are custom made weapons produced by the immune system to target pathogens. In this episode, I make an analogy of how antibodies attack, and tell stories of a fox hunting rabbits, a castle under attack, and two types of leaves. These stories illustrate the functions of antibodies.

Disclaimer: I am a physician scientist at the University of Washington. However, this is a personal podcast, produced in my own time and is unaffiliated with the University of Washington.

The immune system needs to find out if there's a microbe such as a virus that's replicating and causing an infection, plus the immune system wants to collect information about the virus in order to target it with custom-made weapons.

I use multiple analogies to explain what dendritic cells do in 4 chapters:

Chapter 1 Surveillance. Dendritic cells are like radar workers, constantly looking for enemy activity.

Chapter 2 Friend or foe. Dendritic cells have the responsibility of deciding if there is a microbial infection or not, a mistake here can be very costly.

Chapter 3 A journey to the lymph node. how do dendritic cells find their way to the lymph node to deliver enemy intel? And why weren't they moving in that direction before detecting an infection?

Chapter 4 A meeting of the immune cells. Dendritic cells meet other immune cells and take the war to the next phase. An army of clones will be created.

Disclaimer: I am a physician scientist at the University of Washington. However, this is a personal podcast, produced in my own time and is unaffiliated with the University of Washington.