The Lab report is a more detailed continuation of the research proposal on the Immune System’s memory. In the report, we followed the IMRAD sructure and confirmed or disconfirmed the expected results of the experiment conducted.
Fighting the Flu: How Your Immune System Uses Its Memory
Group Name: Future Docs
City College of New York
3/19/19 – 4/11/19
Budget: $100
B.R., F.S., & J.M.
Lab Report
This lab report researched how having more antibodies present during an infection can proficiently assist the immune system in memorizing and fighting off pathogens.
Abstract
This research focuses on the process of the immune system’s memory when the body encounters viral infections and other illnesses. The immune system releases an immune response carried out by white blood cells to protect the body from a particular invader. Once the white blood cells have conquered the pathogens, they generate memory cells. These memory cells become accustomed to the pathogens and will be able to conquer them at a much faster rate. By studying the immune system’s memory cells, deeper knowledge can be gained towards the process on how the immune system is able to recall and fight off these pathogens with multiple antibodies. To investigate this, an immune system model will be created where magnets will represent the antibodies, iron filings will represent pathogens, and salt will represent the cells in a jar. A data table will be included as the model is being tested, and this will record the amount of weight in grams the antibodies can eliminate, individually and as a group. The expected outcome is that the magnets will ultimately bind to the iron filling. The obtained results were that as the amount of magnets increased in the jar, more iron filings were able to be removed. This will demonstrate that if multiple antibodies are more effective than just one individually, then additional pathogens would be defeated. This integrates with the overall process of the immune system’s memory cells.
Introduction
Humans are constantly exposed to pathogens such as harmful bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Many people are not aware when they have been exposed until symptoms are present which allows the pathogen to travel to its’ target site, replicate itself, and attack the specific organ. Pathogens are the cause of illnesses, diseases and infections. Whenever the body is intruded by a pathogen, the immune system steps in to fight off the pathogens. In order to fight off the pathogens, the immune system must first recognize the pathogen, also known as self/ non-self recognition. This allows the immune systems know what belongs and what doesn’t belong, so it can attack the invade instead of the body. Then it proceeds to attack by releasing B cells , which results in the destruction of the pathogens.
The B cells, which is a type of white blood cell, creates proteins called antibodies. Antibodies produced by the B cells, bind to the antigens of the pathogen. This cause the pathogen an inability to enter cells and destroys it. Once the pathogen has been destroyed, the white blood cells leave behind memory T cells .Memory T cell responses to these viruses are generated as a result of a productive immune response that effectively controls the virus ( Farber 2013). The memory T cells intakes an antigen from the pathogen and remembers the structure of the pathogen antibodies, therefore if the body is invaded by the same pathogen again, it will reproduce antibodies and attack the pathogens at a more faster and strong rate than the first encounter.
Studies of mouse models have shown the robust generation of memory T cells that occurs in response to diverse pathogens, and the efficacious protective responses of these cells following reinfection; however, the role of memory T cells in protecting and maintaining long-term health in humans is less clear ( Farber 2013). The purpose of this research is to investigate how memory T cells help fight off pathogens in the human body. The goal of this is to obtain more information on how having more antibodies further benefits the immune system in the destruction of pathogens. This knowledge can help result in the discovery of other methods to helping the body develop t cells and antibodies. It also helps better understand how the immune system respond to pathogens invading the body.
Methods
The materials include: one cup of salt, a measuring cup, one tablespoon of iron filings,
magnetic tape, a ruler, scissors, plastic wrap, twist ties, paper, digital scale, and a jar. The salt will represent human cells while the iron filings will represent pathogens. When the salt and iron filings are mixed together in the jar, it will model an infectious human body. The magnetic pieces represent the human antibodies present in the body. The rest of the materials will serve as measurement tools to precisely conduct the experiment.
One cup of salt was carefully filled into the jar followed by one tablespoon of iron filings into the same jar. The jar was inverted ten times, after the lid was tightly sealed, to ensure that the materials were properly mixed inside the jar. Carefully using scissors and a ruler, the magnetic tape was measured and cut into three 1 inch by 1 inch square shapes. The plastic wrap was then measured and cut into three squares that were about 4 inches by 4 inches so the magnetic tape could be placed in the middle. Each of the plastic wraps sealed one of the magnetic tapes and the twist tie was used to keep them secured.
An antibody model, plastic wrapped magnetic tape, was placed in the jar and inverted 10 times. Holding the antibody model by the twist tie, it was carefully taken out of the jar and observed. The piece paper was then placed on the scale and zeroed out. The iron filings and salt that was attracted to the magnetic tape was then dumped on the paper carefully by removing the magnetic tape from the plastic wrap. The contents were measured, recorded and carefully placed back into the jar for the other trials. These steps were repeated again for trials 2 and 3. While following the same procedures for the single antibodies, all three antibody models were then added to the jar, inverted, and measured three times. The results were recorded and added onto a data table.
Data
Figure 1.
| Three Antibodies Together | ||||||
| One Antibody Alone | 1st Antibody | 2nd Antibody | 3rd Antibody | Total | Average | |
| Trial 1 | 5 g. | 5 g. | 5 g. | 6 g. | 16 g. | 5.3 g. |
| Trial 2 | 3 g. | 3 g. | 4 g. | 6 g. | 13 g. | 4.3 g. |
| Trial 3 | 3 g. | 4 g. | 6 g | 6 g. | 16 g. | 5.3 g. |
Figure 2.
Results
The results from the experiment were as expected. The antibody models extracted the iron filings from the mixture. The “one antibody alone” extracted 3 to 5 grams which averaged a total of 3.7 grams per antibody model. When more antibodies models were added to the jar, it increased the amount of iron filings extracted. As seen in figure 2, the extraction results from trials 1 and 3 had the same amount (16 grams) of iron filings while trial 2 extracted a total of 13 grams. This group effort tripled the effectiveness of the pathogen extractraction. Most extractions picked up insignificant amounts of salt that was trapped in between the iron filings. The total average from all three trials ranged from 4.3 grams to 5.3 grams per antibody model. Therefore, the data results in figures 1 and 2 supported the hypothesis. Multiple antibodies, which are derived from memory t cells, are more effective in eliminating pathogens in comparison to just one cell trying to fight off a new invading pathogen.
Discussion
What can be said after this experiment is that three is better than one. When more antibodies were present, more pathogens were extracted and therefore removed from the human cells. Though one antibody model was effective in removing iron filings, the addition of antibody models gave better results. The grouped antibody models represented the memory cells that are present in the body after a familiar pathogen is reintroduced in the human body. The grouped memory cells are able to detect, extract, and eliminate the pathogens more effectively which makes the recovery time much quicker. When a new pathogen is introduced to the human body, the antibody cells have much more work to do to try and recognize, destroy, and memorize the invader.
Immunological memory is one of the lesser understood aspects of adaptive immunity which protects organisms from recurrent attacks from pathogens (Chandrashekhar, 2010).
The purpose of the experiment was to get a better understanding of how effective memory t cells are when trying to fight off pathogens. This project helps visualize how antibodies work and how memory t cells help destroy pathogens by grouping together and fighting as one. A better understanding of these issues may lead to improvements in vaccination and other medicine geared to fighting off pathogens.
Works Cited
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Farber, Donna. “ Human memory T cells: generation, compartmentalization and homeostasis.” Nature Review. 13, Dec. 2013. https://www.nature.com/articles/nri3567#article-info
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