Q 01/05

Unlike the innate system, what does the adaptive immune system do?

A) Learns to recognise molecules it has met before

B) Responds identically to every pathogen it meets

C) Forms the skin and mucous barriers

D) Triggers inflammation within minutes

Answer · why

A) Learns to recognise molecules it has met before

The adaptive system learns to recognise molecules it has met before, building immunological memory through B and T cells; that memory is the basis of ...

Q 02/05

Which type of white blood cell is the most abundant in human blood?

A) Lymphocytes

B) Eosinophils

C) Neutrophils

D) Monocytes

Answer · why

C) Neutrophils

Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cells and among the first to reach an infection; they swallow microbes and die in such numbers that thei...

Q 03/05

The process by which immune cells engulf and digest pathogens is called what?

A) Osmosis

B) Chemotaxis

C) Apoptosis

D) Phagocytosis

Answer · why

D) Phagocytosis

Phagocytosis traps the pathogen in a phagosome that fuses with a lysosome to digest it; single-celled amoebae use the same trick simply to eat.

Q 04/05

Which Russian zoologist discovered how cells engulf invaders, in 1882, by sticking thorns into starfish larvae?

A) Dmitri Mendeleev

B) Élie Metchnikoff

C) Nikolai Vavilov

D) Ivan Pavlov

Answer · why

B) Élie Metchnikoff

Élie Metchnikoff saw mobile cells crowd around the thorns and reasoned that they defend the body by devouring invaders; the idea won him a share of th...

Q 05/05

The 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went jointly to the founder of cellular immunology and which German scientist, author of the side-chain theory?

A) Rudolf Virchow

B) Paul Ehrlich

C) Emil von Behring

D) Robert Koch

Answer · why

B) Paul Ehrlich

Ehrlich also coined the "magic bullet" idea and discovered Salvarsan, the first drug aimed at a specific pathogen.