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Summary: I wish there were more med school books like this
Review: I love this book. I am a second year medical student and I wish that more of our books were writen like this. The thing that I most like about this book and Dr.Sompayrac's writing style is that he explains WHY the immune system components work the way they do and shows how the structure of say IgM dictates its function and why it would be the first antibody on the scene of an infection. For me, it makes it so much easier to remember all of the details if I have information like that. The book also reads really well and is interesting. The tone is very conversational and not textbooky which I also like. If you are taking immuno I would highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Good start, but then it gets confusing
Review: I never write reviews, but I thought it is very important for me to write a review. I bought this book because I really had a difficult time understanding immunogy and it seemed like a worthwhile book to get. THe book starts out great, but then it just get too complicated. I I think this book is best for those with a average background in immuno. I am sorry to write this review, but I have to be honest.
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Summary: Short, but dense, explanation of the immune system
Review: I took my immunology courses in college too many years ago for me to contemplate. Needing an updated refresher on the immune system, I picked up this book after reading reader's reactions to the book here. I found this book to be excellent. I have a good undergraduate background in biology, but this book is written in such a clear, forthright manner that anyone with an interest in the subject would have no problem understanding the concepts outlined here. The book may be short, but it is dense; there are no throwaway sentences or paragraphs here. Yet the book is written in a clear, sensible manner. I recommend it.
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Summary: Here's why I wrote this book:
Review: I wrote How the Immune System Works because I couldn't find a book that would give my students an overall view of the immune system. Sure, there are as many good, thick textbooks as a person might have money to buy, but these are crammed with every possible detail. There are also lots of "review books" that are great if you want a summary of what you've already learned -- but they won't teach you immunology. What was missing was a short book that tells, in simple language, how the immune system fits together -- a book that presents the big picture of the immune system without the jargon and the details. How the Immune System Works is written in the form of "lectures," because I want to talk to you directly, just as if we were together in the classroom. This book is short, so you should be able to finish it in a few days. In fact, I strongly suggest that you sit down with this little book and read it from start to finish. The whole idea is to get an overall view of the subject, and if you read one lecture a week, that won't happen. Don't "study" the book the first time through -- just read it and enjoy. Later you can go back and re-read the appropriate lectures as your immunology course progresses -- to keep you from losing sight of the big picture as the details get filled in. Although the first lecture is a light-hearted overview meant to give you a running start at the subject, you'll soon discover that this is not "baby immunology." How the Immune System Works is a concept-driven analysis of how the immune system players work together to protect us from disease -- and why they do it this way. In some settings, How the Immune System Works will serve as the main text for the immunology section of a larger course. In a semester-long undergraduate or graduate immunology course, your professor may use this book either as a companion to a detailed text or as the central text, supplemented by additional readings. No matter how your professor may choose to use this book, however, you should keep one important point in mind: I didn't write How the Immune System Works for your professor. This book's for you!
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Summary: Pharmacy Student
Review: I'm a pharmacy student at old Rutgers. The immunology section taughtin my Pathophysiology class was lacking, to say the least. I was suggest to read this book by Lauren M. Sompayrac... and it's the bomb! Really easy to read, very organized, and in a really strange way, quite fun. ... this book is really really excellent.
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Summary: md/phd student like this book
Review: Immunolgy is usually a very intimidating topic for medical students. This is because it is hard to teach it to students with different backgrounds in biology. Also most immunology textbooks are encyclopedic and full of details.
I am the kind of person who likes to get a very simple general introduction to the topic i am studying before i get into the details. I searched high and low for review articles or books that are thin yet offer a complete review. I stumbled on how THE IMMUNE SYSTEM WORKS and I read it in a few days. I love this book and still go back and read it every once in a while to brush up and review.
You will still need a textbook (janeway is great to complement this book) to ace your immunology course and fill in the gaps. But after you read this book everything will become clear. The closest thing to this book is an immunology review series that was run in the New England Journal of Medicine (highly recommended too).
I want to warn people that studying the immune system is not a trivial task. The field is very interdisplinary and requires a solid foundation in genetics and molecular cell biology. If you find that this text is hard to follow then I think you should really try to brush up on certain topics in genetic and molecular biology first. It really does not get easier and cleared than this book.
How the immune system works is very informal, funny, and informative. Lauren tries to teach the immune system like a story and succeeds at doing so. You will never get borred of this reading.
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Summary: Who wouldn't call this a masterpiece?
Review: It took just a day or two to finish this book. Of all the immunology books I have read, this is the best. I wouldn't be surprised if this book became the "immunology book of the century". In this book, Sompayrac talks to us with Socratic method (i.e. he asks a question and then he himself answers it), and through this process he answered every question that I wanted to know and that my professor couldn't answer properly. He compares "immunological players" to every-day things. He gives us a review of the previous chapter. In a word, this book leaves nothing to be desired!
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Summary: Beuatifully written and to the point!
Review: Lauren Sompayrac has done something completely original. He has written a book on immunology in prose that sparkles. The book is easy and fun to read, and very comprehensible. When you are finished, you will understand the basics of immunology. This is no mean feat in a subject as complex as this. The book creates a strong, coherent structure upon which further, more detailed knowledge of immunology can be added if it is your goal,say, to do immunological research. For students, this is the perfect book with which to start. For the average doctor in clinical practice, Sompayrac's book contains everything you need to know. The writing is so clear, strong and direct that I intend to read Sompayrac's other books on Virology and Cancer, two other extremely important areas of medicine. I have been practicing medicine for 30 years, and I can tell you that most medical writing is turgid, dull, boring, flatulant, pedantic, and coma-inducing...in other words, God awful. I am hoping that medical book publishers take notice of this man's work, other writers will follow suit, and perhaps he will start a new trend. Frederick A. Pereira, MD
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Summary: It puts the pieces together
Review: Most textbooks regarding the immune system will treat each part of it as though it were not connected with any other part of the immune system. This book, on the other hand, not only tries to put all the parts together, but does so constantly, in every chapter, so that you are constantly being reminded of all the connections, which makes the workings of the immune system easier to understand, as you are not remembering many little pieces, but a whole continuous network.
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Summary: Keeping It As Simple As Possible
Review: The immune system is distributed throughout the body, but can still usefully be viewed as singular. The body is always under threat from tiny invaders, and it is only the various parts of our immune system, working together, that makes it possible for us to repel them. Without it, we would be dead very quickly. This book gives a good overview of the immune system, with enough detail to understand how the various cells and tissues do what they do. How does the system recognize invaders? How does it recognize self, and leave self alone? Why is foreign tissue rejected? How can the system go wrong? What is the role of the Major Histocompatibility Complex? How do we get immunity? The mechanisms cells use are molecular'protein, mostly'and the immune system is all about protein switches, detectors, and processors. The above questions and others are answered by invoking the protein mechanisms, and explaining how the cells of the immune system can do the magic that they do in recognizing and responding appropriately to the millions of different possible invaders, and why some parts of the system take longer than others to swing into action. The only background you really need for this book is an intelligent layman's interest in science. You should know what proteins are (chains of amino acids), more-or-less how DNA and RNA work, and the ability to follow a technical discussion. The book was written for medical students, but knowledge of anatomy and physiology is not put to use here. The discussion is chatty, informal, and repetitive. Each of the first several chapters ends in a summary diagram of the system interactions that have been discussed up to that point, and each next chapter begins by giving an extensive review of the previous one. In spite of this, the exposition is confusing. The author is doing what he can, but the immune system is inherently difficult to follow. It consists of many sloppy loops that interact with each other in approximate and varying ways. Moreover, certain important interactions are still not understood very well (as the author emphasizes), so there is some fuzziness in the picture. But the last two chapters, on auto-immune diseases and cancer, use what went before, and give the reader some perspective on the general mechanisms. This is a satisfying book, and a real service. It is bringing together knowledge that otherwise would be scattered in research papers, or buried in technical books, and making it accessible. The level is low enough to explain the mechanisms, but leaves out much messiness that clinicians would probably need. No one would feel when they had finished only this book that they could treat an immune system disorder, but they would at least feel that they could comprehend it.
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