Immune Response Activation and Immunomodulation

Immune Response Activation and Immunomodulation has been written to address the perceived needs of both medical school and undergraduate curricula and to take advantage of new understandings in immunology. We have tried to achieve several goals and present the most important principles governing the function of the immune system. Our fundamental objective has been to synthesize the key concepts from the vast amount of experimental data that have emerged in the rapidly advancing field of immunology. The choice of what is most important is based on what is most clearly established by experimentation, what our students find puzzling, and what explains the wonderful efficiency and economy of the immune system. Inevitably, however, such a choice will have an element of bias, and our bias is toward emphasizing the cellular interactions in immune response by limiting the description of many of the underlying biochemical and molecular mechanisms to the essential facts. This book gives an insight into the role of cytokines in activating immune response during pathogenic invasion. Immunomodulation, aryl hydrocarbons, the role of the protein defensin and nucleated cells in provoking immune response, Bcl protein/gene-based apoptotic pathways, and plant-derived phytochemical-mediated immune response are all central themes of this book.