Immunology - any study tips?

[meadow36]

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I am taking Immunology this semester and it's one of the harder undergrad courses that I've taken. It seems very in depth for an undergrad course. Anyway, does anyone have any good websites or tricks to mastering all this information? I just can't seem to get into a groove with this course. We are getting in depth on gene shuffling of B cells in the bone marrow, mechanisms involving cytokines, MHC, compliment, cell signaling, TCR's, etc.

 

[No Imagination]

The reason you can't get into the groove, is there is none. Least none that i could find, and no easy way to understand it. I've spend the better part of 2 years trying to get my head around immunology. When you get right down to it, Adaptive immunology is also innate, Pro-inflamatory cytokines are also anti, B-Cells and T-Cells seem to do very similar things, and there are what? Like 4 different types of Dendritic Cells? There is no agreed upon nomenclature for cytokines, chemokines, interleukens, interferons, ect.

Basically, it seems like the science is in need to a major overhal, like that what they did for biochem and enzymology. Nomenclature especially needs to be made more intuitive.

As a non-immunologist looking in, the field is ripe for major discoveries and advancements, but it seems like they need to get there act together though.

Advice for an undergrad? Be happy they are going into the detail they are, as nothing would make sense if they just did a cursory explanation. I found advanced immuno easier then basic for that reason.

 

[HopefulAg]

I liked immunology. I just studied my ass off pretty much. It was a lot of information to memorize but it did make sense once you put it all together.


But I like immunology in general and find it interesting so that probably had something to do with it.


What book do ya'll use? We used Basic Immunology by Abbas and Lichtman (9781416029748). Thought it was very informative.

 

[nyanko]

What really really helped me a lot in immunology was that my professor tended to make use of all the little slideshow movies and graphics that accompanied my book, and a few that were separate. When I get home later I'll do some digging around on my old laptop and see if I can find a link to these. From what I remember they were free to access, or at least I had a login that I will share with you. These helped me way more easily have down the more basic concepts through being able to watch little "cartoons" of what was going on (what chemists call tic tacs and blobs 😉 ) so that I could build off of that for the more complex and in depth stuff.

I'll PM you when I get home from campus if I can find the address of these, or your book publisher may have their own stuff as well.

 

[charismarl]

I can tell you that if you're learning about all that you will be well prepared for at the first half of immunology in vet school...so it may be hard now, but think of how easy it will be once you're in vet school! I'm probably no help because I'm in the thick of it too right now...but it should be encouragement at least!

 

[meadow36]

Thanks! Any links you can provide would be helpful. I've been "Wikipedia" searching a lot of things that my book doesn't explain very well, which has helped. We are using Kuby's Immunology book. The diagrams and pictures are excellent, but the core explainations are lacking - I find myself asking, "ok what was this again?" like what I'm actually looking at isn't clear.

 

[ShelterGirl]

I ended up buying a second textbook in addition to Kuby:

http://www.amazon.com/Immunology-Short-Course-Richard-Coico/dp/0471226890

Between the two, I did fairly well except when the teacher would ask questions whose answers were found in neither book nor all of Google-land 😡