0:00
My name is Pietro Ghezzi,
I'm a Professor of
General Pathology
at the University
of Urbino in Italy
and Emeritus Professor at Brighton
and Sussex Medical School.
This lecture will be
about inflammation.
Its purpose, its mechanisms
and how it develops.
0:19
Inflammation can be discussed
in different contexts.
As a mechanism of
innate immunity,
that is defence against
infectious pathogens.
As a response to injury,
and as a pathogenetic
mechanism in disease.
Even though the
word inflammation
normally recalls a
disease condition,
this is not the purpose why
we evolved this mechanism.
I will start with immunity
because I think that
is really the purpose
of inflammation.
0:59
What is the "function" of
the inflammatory response?
Probably the main
reason why it evolved
is as a mechanism in the
host defense from pathogens.
There is also another
aspect related to immunity.
That is how
inflammation develops
in the absence of an infection.
That will be the second
perspective that I will give.
1:27
Let's start with
inflammation as an aspect,
a mechanism of innate immunity.
1:36
Let's start by zooming
out and asking,
how do we survive an infection?
We have two major mechanisms
by which we survive
an infection.
Pathogen control
and damage control.
Pathogen control
is the mechanism
by which you decrease
the number of pathogens,
either by killing them or
by inhibiting their growth.
Damage control is how
we protect or adapt to
minimize the damage induced by
the infection, the pathogen.
Pathogen control,
decreasing the number of pathogens by
killing or inhibiting their growth,
is part of what we call, broadly,
immunity or the immune system.
Immunity has two arms.
Innate immunity, of which
inflammation is a part of,
and this is what will
be discussed today.
Then adaptive immunity.
That is T cells, B
cells, antibodies,
that is something else.
