Dendritic Cells and a Potential for Autoimmune Therapeutics

On the Scishow Talk Show, doctoral candidate Joanna Kreitinger, who studies immunology, discusses dendritic cells. Dendritic cells are on the front lines of our immune system, and they come into contact with our envrionment as they reside in tissues like the skin and lining of the nose, and are constantly vigilant for invading pathogens.

When dendritic cells come into contact with a pathogen, they can chomp off some of it and carry it off to other parts of the immune system so that a full response against the pathogen can be initialized, as explained in the video.

In this talk, Kreitinger talks about some of the research being done on these cells. In her work, she is interested in reducing the immune response when it is inactive at the wrong time. That is a problem in autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. She works with a research team to investigate the idea that the immune system could be taught that it should not be attacking specific proteins, thus alleviating symptoms of disease.

If you stay tuned for the second part of the video, there's a show and tell about emperor scorpions.