IPAK-EDU

Syllabus – The Biology of the Immune System

FALL 2025

Instructor: James Lyons-Weiler, PhD

Live class meetings: Tuesdays @ 1PM ET via Zoom

If you miss a class, don’t worry. Lecture videos will be available after each class.

Recommended Books:

Soumpayrac, L. 2019. How the Immune System Works, Sixth Ed. John Wiley & Sons www.wiley.com/go/sompayrac

Mahmoudi, Massoud. Immunology Made Ridiculously Simple.

Course description: In a series of live online presentations and discussions, students will learn the fundamentals of the biology of the immune system and become well-informed and primed for discussions in the public sphere.There will be recommended readings, additional recommended videos, recommended books.There are no quizzes or exams. Students are encouraged to think of questions during each lecture to be ready to facilitate the live discussion after each lecture.

Lecture Schedule Topics (15 or 16 lectures in total, tentative, subject to change)

• Background and Course Overview
• History of Immunology
• Immune Tolerance
• First Defenses
• Innate Immunity Overview
• Adaptive Immunity Overview (Adaptive Immunity is Recombination Defense)
• How Antibody Diversity is Generated
• Gastroimmunity
• Immune System and Development (Immunohomeostasis)
• Autoimmunity (Processes, Nervous System, Cardiovascular System, Metabolism)
• Anaphylaxis, Mast Cell Disease
• Allergic Reactions and Autoimmune Disease
• Asthma is an Autoimmune Condition
• Immunology and Cancer
• Immunology and Degenerative Diseases
• Microglia and Your Brain
• Pathogen/Host Interactions
• Immunotoxins
• SARS-COV-2, COVID-19 and Human Immunity