It's Good to Be a Vertebrate
The adaptive immune system is one of the most complex products of evolution. Many of its mechanisms remain poorly understood.
By Magdalena Kulma
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has somewhat skewed our perspective, it remains a fact that hundreds of years of scientific and medical progress have taught us how to protect ourselves very effectively against microorganisms. We've developed hygiene practices that have limited the spread and transmission of disease-causing germs. We've also created drugs and vaccines. Thanks to all this, we're no longer exposed, to anywhere near the degree our ancestors were, to diseases that once decimated humanity, such as plague, cholera, or the Spanish flu.
But all these cultural inventions are merely an extension of what biological evolution has been doing for us for hundreds of millions of years. No form of support in the fight against pathogens would produce any positive effect at all were it not for the presence and functioning of our immune system.
