Dear ladies and gentlemen!

Immunology in our clinic

Immunology is a contemporary branch of medical science that studies the immune system in humans and its changes under various pathologic conditions. It is considered that the term immunity comes from the Roman law and was used to denote the legal protection from the prosecution.

At the same time the term was introduced to the medical practice but that happened by chance. The ancient Rome presumed the diseases of the humans to be the punishment of the Gods for the atonement and acquisition of the immunity after the disease was considered the salvation. Today the term implies a complex system of the cellular and humoral interaction of the components of blood, bone marrow and immune organs (thymus, liver, spleen and other) and their responses to the effects of the environment and imbalance of internal homeostasis of the organism induced by the pathologic antigens.

Immunity can be innate and acquired. The innate immunity is provided by the NK-cells and NKT cells, as well as by ϒ∂ T cells of blood and B1 and B2 cells. The acquired immunity is developed by the marcophages, cytotxic lymphocytes and dendritic cells under the effects of specific antigens. The dendritic cells capture pathologic antigens and present them on their membrane surface.

Immunology as the science emerged as the result of the understanding of the methods of coping with the epidemics of mortal infections and predominantly developed as infectious immunology. Thanks to it the main molecular-biological phenomena of the development of immunity to the infectious diseases have been described, and the methods of prevention have been worked out.

Recently, a new direction known as immunology of cancer or oncoimmunology is being actively developed. Its patterns and trends differ from those of the infectious immunology greatly and require separate research and understanding.