[health] The Super-Soldier Cells Hiding in Your Pus … The Atlantic takes a look at one of our immune system’s most potent weapons. ‘Neutrophils are more Cylons than stormtroopers. While other immune cells creep by at speeds of just a couple micrometers per minute, neutrophils can barrel through vessels 10 times as fast, and are flexible enough to squeeze themselves through spaces that span less than an eighth of their width. They are healers that can help stitch torn tissues back together; they can wrangle tumors too, and shape the fate of the immune cells that follow them. Neutrophils also harbor one of the immune system’s most terrifying armaments: They can unspool the genetic material that’s normally packed into a tight wad at their center, freckle it with toxic proteins and compounds, and then spew it out their side like a lethal sneeze—a weaponization of their own DNA.’
The Killing Machines That Live (Briefly) Within Us
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021 at 10:01 am and is filed under COVID-19, Health.
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