Cell Recognition and the Immune System- Vaccines

Question 1

What do vaccines help to avoid?

Answer 1

Suffering from the disease while B cells are dividing to build up their numbers to deal with the pathogen

Question 2

What do vaccines contain?

Answer 2

Antigens that cause your body to produce memory cells against a pathogen without the pathogen causing disease

Question 3

What is herd immunity?

Answer 3

Those who are not vaccinated are less likely to catch the disease as vaccines reduce the occurence of the disease and there are fewer people to catch it from

Question 4

What form are the antigens in vaccines?

Answer 4

Free or attached to a dead or weakened pathogen

Question 5

How may vaccines be taken?

Answer 5

Injected or taken orally

Question 6

What are disadvantages of taking vaccines orally?

Answer 6

It could be broken down by enzymes in the gut or molecules of the vaccine may be too large to be absorbed into the blood

Question 7

How can you make sure that memory cells are produced?

Answer 7

By giving booster vaccines

Question 8

What do antigens on the surface of pathogens do?

Answer 8

Activate the primary immune response

Question 9

What happens when you’re infected a second time with the same pathogen after having a vaccine?

Answer 9

The memory cells produced by the vaccine activate the secondary immune response

Question 10

What is antigenic variation?

Answer 10

Pathogens change their surface antigens and so the genes of the pathogens change

Question 11

How does antigenic variation affect immunity?

Answer 11

When infected a second time, the memory cells produced from the first infection won’t recognise the different antigens

Question 12

How does antigenic variation affect the production of vaccines for the influenza virus?

Answer 12

1. The antigens on the surface change every year and form new strains of the virus
2. Memory cells produced from the vaccine won’t recognise the different antigens
3. Different vaccines have to be produced every year

Question 13

What is active immunity?

Answer 13

Immunity you get when your immune system makes its own antibodies after being stimulated by an antigen

Question 14

What is natural active immunity?

Answer 14

When you become immune after catching a disease

Question 15

What is artificial active immunity?

Answer 15

When you become immune after you’ve been given a vaccination

Question 16

What is passive immunity?

Answer 16

Type of immunity you get from being given antibiotics made by a different organism so your immune system doesn’t produce any antibodies of its own

Question 17

What is natural passive immunity?

Answer 17

When a baby becomes immune due to antibodies it receives from its mother through the placenta and breast milk

Question 18

What is artificial passive immunity?

Answer 18

When you become immune after being injected with antibodies from someone else

Question 19

What are the differences between active and passive immunity?

Answer 19

• Active requires exposure to antigen and passive does not
• Active takes a while for protection to develop and passive protection is immediate
• In active memory cells are produced and in passive they aren’t
• Protection is long-term because the antibody is produced in response to complementary antigen being present in body in active, and protection is short-term because antibodies given are broken down in passive