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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Complete layperson here but it kind of astounds me that we haven't cracked the code for this friend-or-foe identification. One would think there is some identifier or expression that is evaluated by the immune system and if we could match that we'd be golden but clearly not that simple.
We can’t even cure autoimmune diseases yet. Why the fuck has my immune system decided my own tissues are the enemy?! Such a dick move.
Fucking confused white blood cells need to figure out their shit
I started reading the book Immune by the team that runs the Kurzgesagt (In a Nutshell) YouTube channel. The book is written for laypeople like us to understand, but I didn't get very far before going "holy shit this is ridiculously complicated". Honestly, just the fact that scientists understand any of this astounds me.
Rheumatologists are practicing alchemy, I'm convinced.
Years of dedication, my friend.
Surprisingly, things become simpler when there are more eyes looking at them. The more esoteric something is, the harder it will be to grasp because there are fewer resources to help you.
Taking immunology right now, it's incredibly complicated. Immune cells aren't like any other cells in our bodies, they're absolutely bonkers.
Biology is not as simple as 1s and 0s. We want it too be. But it's just more complex.
Cue The Island, lol
Our bodies are just winging it. It's both beautiful and goodness and all kinds of other things but it's a bit philosophical at times.
I had ITP. Autoimmune something which means they don't know what caused it but my body stopped acknowledging that parts of my blood cell, not the entire one just a piece of it, we're not me. Of course not me gets flushed out.
But the fancy words for part of a blood cell is called a platelet if you don't have any platelets you don't clot. As you can probably pick up not being able to clot is a big problem. I was in danger of bleeding out because my body decided to take out all my platelets.
Seems like an easy problem. If a whole blood cell is me because the DNA matches and all kinds of other things, obviously one cell of me is one cell of me. But if you take one cell of me and you break it up into pieces is it still one cell of me? By definition is not it is 50% of me....
So one cell of me is obviously me and one cell of you is obviously you but what happens when we get into percents at what percent does my cell stop becoming me?
Fair enough.
These are very complicated processes that are difficult to interpret with such a (relatively) small number of people looking at it.
Your body has the miraculous ability to identify ANYTHING that isn’t itself: viruses, fungi, bacteria, even lots of nearly-self things like cancer.
It’s likely not a solvable problem.
Oh it is... we just need to get over the idiots that don't like stem cell research. If we could clone and grow our own organs it would be a huge step.
I doubt that.