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Adaptive immunity

Slower, highly specific defenses carried out by B and T cells, which remember infections they have met before.Source: Janeway CA Jr et al., 2001

Process

How Adaptive immunity connects

Adaptive immunity is found in

  • Structure

    Immune system

    The cells, tissues and molecules that defend the body against infection.

Adaptive immunity uses

  • Molecule

    Antibody

    A Y-shaped protein made by B cells that binds a specific target. Rearranging gene segments creates enormous antibody diversity.

  • Structure

    T cells

    White blood cells that recognize infected cells by the fragments of foreign proteins they display alongside MHC molecules.

Adaptive immunity is used by

  • Technology or method

    Vaccination

    Training the immune system with a harmless form or part of a pathogen. Smallpox eradication was certified in 1979 after a global eradication campaign.

Studied in

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Sources & further reading

The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.