John S. Tregoning

‘This book catapults us to the frontier of the vital science of infections and immune responses. Tregoning is a perfect guide, writing with wit and intelligence about a subject which surely everyone feels the importance of now. Brilliant and right on the zeitgeist.’ Daniel M. Davis, author of The Beautiful Cure and The Secret Body ‘Packed with fascinating facts, intriguing anecdotes and more than a few Dad jokes, Infectious is an expertly guided, pacey tour through the world of all the stuff that’s trying to kill us and how our immune systems and human ingenuity are fighting back.’ Dr Kat Arney, science communicator and author of Rebel Cell: Cancer, Evolution and the Science of Life Nature wants you dead. Not just you, but your children and everyone you have ever met and everyone they have ever met; in fact, everyone. It wants you to cough and sneeze and poop yourself into an early grave. It wants your blood vessels to burst and pustules to explode all over your body. And – until recently – it was really good at doing this… COVID-19 may be only the first of many modern pandemics. The subject of infection and how to fight it grows more urgent every day. How do pathogens cause disease? And what tools can we give our bodies to do battle? Dr John S. Tregoning has dedicated his career to answering these questions. Infectious uncovers fascinating success stories in immunology and virology, making this book not only a vital overview of infection, but also a hopeful story of ongoing human ingenuity.

Pathogens and How We Fight Them

Infectious

Cassandra Tang

A key point is that science is a dynamic process: ideas change with increases in information or developments in technology. Each generation is better equipped to interpret the world around them.

While desirable, an experiment that can only give you the answer you want isn’t an experiment. Proving something is wrong is as important as proving it is right.

Diagnosis is not the end, but the beginning

A fine line exists in public health messaging – infectious diseases need to be scary enough that people do sensible things like wash their hands, get vaccinated, use antibiotics appropriately and invest in my research, but we don’t want them to be so scary that people buy all the loo roll.

Infectious quotes

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