A lot has been learned since then, and this book is an attempt to update that picture, as well as tell the real human impact of what happens to four people who in one way or another have a problem with their immune system functioning. It was the way your body fought infections, and it did that with white blood cells, that would attack and kill off anything that wasn't you.

When I was a youngster in school, the story I heard on the immune system was really pretty simple.

An Elegant Defense also captures in vivid detail how these powerful therapies, along with our behavior and environment, interact with the immune system, often for the good but always on a razor’s edge that can throw this remarkable system out of balance.ĭrawing on his groundbreaking reporting for the New York Times and based on extensive new interviews with dozens of world-renowned scientists, Matt Richtel has produced a landmark book, equally an investigation into the deepest riddles of survival and a profoundly human tale that is movingly brought to life through the eyes of his four main characters, each of whom illuminates an essential facet of our “elegant defense.” The foundation that Richtel builds makes accessible revelations about cancer immunotherapy, the microbiome, and autoimmune treatments that are changing millions of lives.

Richtel effortlessly guides readers on a scientific detective tale winding from the Black Plague to twentieth-century breakthroughs in vaccination and antibiotics, to the cutting-edge laboratories that are revolutionizing immunology-perhaps the most extraordinary and consequential medical story of our time. Paradoxically, it is a fragile wonder weapon that can turn on our own bodies with startling results, leading today to epidemic levels of autoimmune disorders. It has been honed by evolution over millennia to face an almost infinite array of threats.įor all its astonishing complexity, however, the immune system can be easily compromised by fatigue, stress, toxins, advanced age, and poor nutrition-hallmarks of modern life-and even by excessive hygiene. Its legion of microscopic foot soldiers-from T cells to “natural killers”-patrols our body, linked by a nearly instantaneous communications grid. The immune system is our body’s essential defense network, a guardian vigilantly fighting illness, healing wounds, maintaining order and balance, and keeping us alive. Matt Richtel's An Elegant Defense uniquely entwines these intimate stories with science’s centuries-long quest to unlock the mysteries of sickness and health, and illuminates the immune system as never before. Two women with autoimmunity discover their own bodies have turned against them. A grand tour of the human immune system and the secrets of health, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalistĪ terminal cancer patient rises from the grave.

Matt richtel an elegant defense