Glossary

A substance that when administered to a recipient can elicit a change in the state of the immune system. It can be a change from sensitization to tolerance in allergic disease or from naivete or tolerance to protective sensitization against infectious agents or against the tumor-specific antigens of cancers.

An antigen for which the range of known responses includes allergic sensitization.

If one injects pre-formed particles in the 0.5-to-5-micron size range for efficient APC uptake they will stay in clumps where APCs cannot reach them. ADBP is the method discovered by Dr. Coifman to create particles in this size range where APCs can find and reach them by precipitation.

A process of administering an allergen to which the recipient is allergic in a manner designed to safely induce tolerance to that allergen.

An allergic reaction that typically presents as allergic eczema. A common example is the rash induced by allergy to poison ivy is.

The five main isotypes of immunoglobulin are IgM, IgD, IgG, IgE, and IgA. IgE is the antibody isotype that mediates most reactions to environmental allergens and foods.

Cells that migrate through body tissues picking up samples of things that might not belong, delivering them to lymph nodes for processing by the immune system. APCs pick up particles in the 0.5-to-5-micron size range with particularly high efficiency.

Cancers exist when the patient’s immune system has not recognized or developed protective sensitization to the cell surface changes that make cancer cells cancerous. The field of cancer immunotherapy encompasses a diverse range of strategies directed at the achievement of this therapeutic goal. ADBP and others incorporate therapeutic administration of the antigens to which the patient’s pre-treatment response was insufficient.

Chronic infectious diseases are illnesses caused by viruses, bacteria, or other infectious agents to which the patient has been exposed to for enough time to have developed a protective immune response but has not done so. Immunotherapy for chronic infectious diseases, such as TB and malaria, is the field of efforts to safely induce those responses.

A catch-all label for any therapeutic effort to alter a preexisting immune response or lack of response. Its categories, which include AIT, various forms of cancer immunotherapy, and use of infectious disease vaccines to modify already established sensitivity or tolerance.

The immune response constitutes the primary biological defense mechanism that safeguards the body from diverse threats.

Pieces of proteins that trigger recognition by the immune system. The evolutionary importance of distinguishing helpful from harmful proteins in our bodies has given our immune systems the ability to recognize and respond to most peptide sequences that affect how a protein functions.

Peptide epitope vaccines take advantage of the different chemical properties and abilities to manipulate antigenic epitopes that are not possible with complete intact proteins.

Poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac are types of American plants.

Protective immunity encompasses the immunity vaccines give us to prevent such infectious diseases as measles and the processes by which our bodies screen for and eliminate most mutations that would become cancers if unchecked and by which we normally tolerate environmental allergens.

Regulatory T-cells (Tregs), both natural and induced, are the T-cells that mediate specific, active immunological tolerance of every antigenic protein in the human body and those we encounter in the environment without becoming allergic. The goal is to induce Treg cell responses in allergic diseases, and to switch to other types of immune response in chronic infectious diseases and cancers.

The diverse population of T-cells with varying functions, cytokine profiles, and responses in the immune system. This diversity is essential for tailoring immune responses to different pathogens and maintaining immune regulation and balance.

The activation of naive T-cells in response to antigen, and their subsequent proliferation and differentiation, constitutes a primary immune response.

A protein or other molecule found only on cancer cells and not on normal cells.

Development of a universal influenza vaccine providing durable protection against multiple influenza strains.

Urushiol is the primary allergenic cause of contact dermatitis.