Viruses, Pandemics, and Immunity

How viruses emerge to cause pandemics, how our immune system combats them, and how diagnostic tests, vaccines, and antiviral therapies work.

Throughout history, humans have contended with pandemics. History is replete with references to plagues, pestilence, and contagion, but the devastation wrought by pandemics had been largely forgotten by the twenty-first century. Now, the enormous human and economic toll of the rapidly spreading COVID-19 disease offers a vivid reminder that infectious disease pandemics are one of the greatest existential threats to humanity. This book provides an accessible explanation of how viruses emerge to cause pandemics, how our immune system combats them, and how diagnostic tests, vaccines, and antiviral therapies work-- concepts that are a foundation for our public health policies.

Arup K. Chakraborty is Robert T. Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Physics and Chemistry at MIT, where he also served as the Founding Director of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. He is a founding member of the Ragon Institute. Andrey S. Shaw, an immunologist, is Staff Scientist in Immunology and Oncology at Genentech and holds adjunct professorships at Washington University in St. Louis and at the University of California, San Francisco. Illustrator Philip J. S. Stork is a Professor at the Vollum Institute at Oregon Health and Science University.

Prologue
Chapter 1: Conquering Smallpox
Chapter 2: The Discovery of Microbes and the Dawn of Vaccines
Chapter 3: Viruses and the Emergence of Pandemics
Chapter 4: Immunity
Chapter 5: Spread and Mitigation of Pandemics
Chapter 6: Antiviral Therapies
Chapter 7: Vaccines
Epilogue: Toward a more pandemic resilient future