Question the Diagnosis by Rayan Najjar

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What is inflammation?

Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Welcome to bitesize immunology, I’m your host Dr Rayan Najjar, a physician scientist in rheumatology. Inflammation is a reaction from the immune system to a stressor with the goal of eliminating the stress and reinstituting pre-inflammation normal operations. More specifically, inflammation is the accumulation of fluid, plasma proteins and immune cells in response to an injury or infection.  The word Inflammation is overused these days. A lot of non-experts make unfounded claims about…

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What are T cells?

Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Welcome to bitesize immunology. I’m your host Dr Rayan Najjar, a physician scientist in rheumatology One quick announcement before I begin. If you’d like to see illustrations of immune cells the way I imagine them on this podcast, follow me on Bluesky, you can look me up by my name or by my username RNA guy.  So this episode will be about T cells. A T cell is a lymphocyte that is part…

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Episode 4. What are neutrophils?

Welcome to bitesize immunology, I’m your host Dr Rayan Najjar, a physician scientist in rheumatology. Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cells. They are the first responders of the immune system, first to arrive at a site of injury or pathogen entry. If you’ve ever had a skin abscess, the pus inside is mostly neutrophils that died in battles protecting you from the invading bacteria. Neutrophils fight pathogens in different ways. They eat bacteria, spray them with chemicals, and…

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Episode 3. How does the immune system have existing blueprints targeting viruses it has never seen before?

Welcome to bitesize immunology, I’m your host Dr Rayan Najjar, a physician scientist in rheumatology. The first time your body was infected with the flu, your immune system responded with a targeted attack against the virus even though it has never seen this virus before. In other words,  some lymphocytes in your body have receptors on their surfaces that are complementary to the 3D structure of different parts of the flu virus, even before the first time you had the…

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Episode 2. What are antibodies? And what are their functions?

Welcome to bitesize immunology, I’m your host Dr Rayan Najjar, a physician scientist in rheumatology. Antibodies are one of the weapons made by the immune system to fight microbes. What makes them special is that they are custom made to damage their intended target. In this episode, I start by discussing the structure of antibodies, then will move to the main part of the podcast and tell you 4 stories: one imagining what it would feel like to be attacked…

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Episode 1. Dendritic cells: How does the immune system know when there is an infection?

Welcome to bite size immunology, I’m your host Dr. Rayan Najjar, a physician scientist in rheumatology  One of the major functions of the immune system is to protect us from infections. One of the ways it does that is through its amazing ability to manufacture custom made weapons against viruses or other microbes that infect our bodies. For this to work, first, we need a detection system that surveys our bodies for infection, 2nd, we need a way to analyze…

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Bitesize immunology podcast introduction and disclaimer

Welcome to bitesize immunology, I am your host Dr Rayan Najjar, I am a physician scientist in rheumatology, which is a field of medicine that specializes in autoimmune diseases. My research focuses on studying the genome to understand the causes of autoimmune diseases. This podcast will discuss the basics of immunology in a simple easy to digest way.  I think it is common knowledge that the immune system protects us from infections. However, the immune system is also critical in…

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