Posted by In my project I created a fun game called Immunopoly a fun offshoot of Monopoly where the players travel through an Alaskan year learning healthy habits and defeating evil pathogens with immune responses. This is depicted in the pictures attached. The second portion of my project is an inquiry into what is cancer and how our immune system combats it and how cancer affects the immune system concluding with some really interesting research about using the immune system to combat cancer.
As for his written section, he went further into depth about the immune system and discussed how a healthy immune system seeks out and destroys abnormal cells through a description of cancer. Cancer isn’t a pathogen that we people get from being exposed to it, but rather is simply an overabundance of abnormal dysfunctional cells that the body has not destroyed. All healthy cells create an antigen flag called Histocompatibility Complex 1 that signals that the cell is in good health; however, if a cell becomes compromised, it will not produce the MHC1 flag and be destroyed by the NK cells. This occurs daily to ensure mutated cells don’t eventually turn to cancer.
Those who possess a chronic inflammatory disorder may have an increased chance of cancer, and this potentially can indicate that there is some correlation to the illness weakening the immune system, and the increased allowance of the cancer cells to multiply. Furthermore, another way that abnormal cells are able to proliferate is that they develop mechanisms that allow them to evade any immunosurveillance and hide from any detection.
This was such an interesting idea, and I bet it would be really fun to play and learn from!
I would love to get my hands on the cards to play this game. I have printed the board pdf for my students and have been searching for the cards. Any help?