El sistema inmunitario en la salud y la enfermedad

The immune system is widely known due to its relevance to the body’s protection against infectious agents. Nevertheless, these same mechanisms of protection may damage the own tissues, when they are overactivated (hypersensitivity), when they fail (immunodeficiencies) or when they do not recognize their own tissues (autoimmunity). Therefore, this paper addresses how the immune system works in the presence of sickness or health, as well as how this knowledge has been applied to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of many diseases, highlighting one of its main contributions to the evolution of the current medicine: the vaccines.