Title: An Elegant Defense : The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System
Description: "A groundbreaking narrative exploration of the human immune system--the key to human health and longevity--from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and acclaimed author of A Deadly Wandering"--

The immune system is a guardian vigilantly fighting illness, healing wounds, maintaining order and balance, and keeping us alive. Richtel interweaves the stories of four people: a terminal cancer patient who rises from the grave; a medical marvel who defies HIV; two women with autoimmunity who discover their own bodies have turned against them. As he leads us from the Black Plague to twentieth-century breakthroughs in vaccination and antibiotics, to the cutting-edge laboratories that are revolutionizing immunology, his four patients each illuminates an essential facet of our "elegant defense." -- adapted from jacket
Subjects: Immune system, Popular works, Immunology, Immunologic diseases, Patients, Immune System Diseases, Immune System Phenomena, SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Biology, SCIENCE / History, MEDICAL / Immunology