Immunology: understanding our body’s defences

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• Dr Peter Bretscher, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, introduces the field of immunology and explains the main research questions immunologists are aiming to answer.
• This resource also contains an interview with Peter, providing an insight into careers in immunology.
• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Peter’s work, and tasks them to explore ideas for preventing autoimmunity.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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