Image – Human STEAM

EVERYONE HAS A SUPERHERO INSIDE OF THEM…

My steam Project covered objectives from the Immune and Lymphatic System categories. I chose “23. Describe various WBCs and their functions” and “26. Compare and Contrast the innate and adaptive immune response;” however, I also briefly covered topic 25, “Interpret the response of WBC counts disease.”

To poetry these topics I created a comic-style piece depicting each pathogen and WBC as characters. I used a common pathogen, influenza, to show the immune responses. I focused on the use of neutrophils in this immune response because it is the most common innate white blood cell. I briefly describe both Eosinophils and Basophils and what they are used for.

In my cartoon, neutrophils are the first layer of defense after influenza is absorbed through the skin by airborne pathogens from a sneeze. The pathogen attacks the body and the neutrophils form a “barrier,” beginning the innate immune response. The innate immune response does not cater to specific pathogens, different WBCs attack based on what has entered the body. The barrier that I am trying to portray is the Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). These traps are made of many extracellular strings of DNA binding to pathogenic microbes along with histones and several neutrophil granule proteins, damaging entrapped microorganisms and helping to stop the pathogen from causing further harm (Rada, 2019). To show the entire immune response, the pathogen busted through the neutrophils and macrophages had to continue to fight the “villain.” Macrophages are also an innate immune response and work by phagocytosis and sterilization of the invading substance, helping fight the invasion; however, because they are innate, like the Granulocytes, they maintain their bacterial phagocytic abilities but do not express toll-like receptors that recognize bacteria, preventing them from forming a response(Hirayama et al., 2017). The macrophages complete phagocytosis, which is the ingestion of the pathogen. Visible in the macrophage, pathogen consumption signals the adaptive immune responses. Finally, I showed the T-cells attacking and the B-cells attaching to the pathogen by binding the antigens to the pathogen, as the adaptive immune response, as B and T cells have memories to prevent another infection from the same pathogen or strain.
I used bone marrow as the “creator” of WBC or “superheroes.” Bone marrow is an essential part of the immune system, so diseases or injuries can hurt the body's ability to form immune responses. Leukemia, a type of cancer, directly affects the bone marrow as it changes, forming leukemia cells that can survive better than normal cells (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society n.d.). Poor bone marrow function causes neutropenia, lack of an innate WBC, and neutrophils. Losing function of the main immune responses and WBCs can be very dangerous and in an article showing the relationship between Leukemia and WBCs, “one-fourth of patients with leukemia experience neutropenia (Chinadol Wanitpongpun et al., 2022).” I attempted to show this by damaging white blood cells, ending the immune response early, and allowing the pathogen to attack the body without killer T cells or B-cell’s adaptive intervention.

Word Count: 499 Words

References
Chinadol Wanitpongpun, Nattiya Teawtrakul, Theerin Lanamtieng, Kanchana Chansung, Chittima Sirijeerachai, Worakamol Amampai, & Kittisak Sawanyawisuth. (2022). Clinical factors predictive of recurrent febrile neutropenia in adult patients with acute leukemia. Leukemia Research Reports, 100296–100296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrr.2022.100296
Hirayama, D., Lida, T., & Nakase, H. (2017). The Phagocytic Function of Macrophage-Enforcing Innate Immunity and Tissue Homeostasis. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 19(1), 92. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19010092
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society . (n.d.). Leukemia | Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Www.lls.org. Retrieved April 18, 2024, from https://www.lls.org/leukemia#:~:text=Leukemia-
Rada, B. (2019). Neutrophil Extracellular Traps. Methods in Molecular Biology, 517–528. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9424-3_31

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