Key Stage 3
Meaning
An antibody is a chemical made by white blood cells that help fight infection.
Key Stage 4
Meaning
An antibody is a chemical made by lymphocytes that is used to fight pathogens.
About Antibodies
- Some antibodies can directly damage or destroy a pathogen.
- Some antibodies attach themselves to pathogens to make it easier for phagocytes to engulf and destroy them. They act like tags to tell the phagocytes which cells to attack.
- When an organism is infected lymphocytes produce hundreds of different antibodies until one works.
- Once a lymphocyte has produce a working antibody it will remember and reproduce it any time the same pathogen infects the organism.
- If a patient's own antibodies are not able to get rid of a pathogen scientists can find and organism that makes antibodies that do work and copy them to be injected into the patient. These are called monoclonal antibodies.