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News & information

Units 11 & 12 notes updated, 2011
Supplements updated, 2011

There is a practice midterm test available on the Week 7 page.

We'll be in Ed2 South Rm. 2305


In its May 2011 meeting the World Health Assembly again gave the remaining stocks of smallpox virus a reprieve, to the disappointment of many "destructionists." But the decision will be reviewed in 2014, earlier than the United States, the primary "retentionist," wanted. More on the story from ScienceInsider.

WEEK 6: 11 October

Unit 11: Immunogenetics & Transplantation Download the PDF

Unit 12: Resistance, Immunity, & Vaccines Download the PDF

Supplemental views of MHC structure: Visual MHC (PDF)

Reading recommendation: A very good book on the risks caused to everyone's health by people who argue that immunization is unnecessary or dangerous. Deadly Choices: How the anti-vaccine movement threatens us all. Paul A. Offit, MD. Basic Books, New York, 2011.

Supplemental material (optional): Balto brings the serum to Nome The dog that led the sled team that brought diphtheria antiserum to Nome, Alaska, saving some kids' lives. His long run is commemorated by the Iditarod dog sled race every year.

Supplemental material (optional): What not to do when there's a rabid bat! MMWR tells about a parent who brought a dead bat to school, and the panic that ensued when it was found to have died of rabies. The CDC arrived, but curiously, the schoolkids' parents trusted the opinions of their family docs (who probably knew nothing about rabies) more than they did the experts. A cool quick review of rabies prophylaxis.

Supplemental material (optional): Hydrophobia Robert Burton, a doctor and cleric at Oxford, wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy in 1628. Here is his short section on hydrophobia, as rabies was then called. It's amazingly accurate and overwhelmingly learned, and fun to read.

And if you wanna break from studying, here's 2:54 of neo-garage retropunk revival by The Vaccines: