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Inflammation: purposes, mechanisms and development

Published on April 28, 2022   47 min

Other Talks in the Series: The Immune System - key concepts and questions

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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.
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Inflammation: purposes, mechanisms and development

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