MemoryCell

this one is long overdue :')
oh well it's here now

Tundra Badly Summarizes the Cells of the Immune System Part 9: Memory Cells

Memory is one of the most important parts of the immune system; it's what makes you immune to a disease. After an infection is over, most of the soldiers will kill themselves to save energy and nutrients (an immune response is very costly), but not all of them. Some T cells and B cells will remain as memory T and B cells. They will remain in your body and protect you from the pathogen that activated them -- maybe for the rest of your life.

This is way more complicated and "memory cell" is a really broad term so this is incomplete, but in a nutshell: memory T cells wait in the tissue and lymphatic system until they come across the antigen that originally activated them. When they do, they activate once again. This initiates an adaptive immune response without needing to wait for days! Memory B cells produce a steady amount of antibodies for years, even decades, which can quickly deal with any pathogen they can connect to.

I don't want to go super in-depth about this, but vaccines work by playing into this. In a nutshell, most vaccines work by exposing your immune system to a weakened version of a dangerous pathogen in order to stimulate it into producing memory cells, making you immune against the disease without having to go through the risky ordeal of actually being sick with it.

IKTR count: 2

ok I'm done now
unless I do complement someday
that could be cool

oh, I should make a mast cell, basophil and eosinophil! I should learn more about those ones too

shoutout to kurzgesagt again go check them out they're awesome

2022/02/23: Bought; named