Disease / Immune System

Clostridium tetani and Tetanus    |    Maja Divjak

This animation describes the process of infection with Clostridium tetani and how the toxin it releases interrupts nervous control of our muscles, leading to tetanus.

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Bordetella pertussis & Whooping Cough    |    Maja Divjak

This animation opens with normal respiratory function, then demonstrates how a bacterium, Bordetella pertussis, causes whooping cough by damaging ciliated airway cells.

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Diabetes (type I)    |    Etsuko Uno

This animation explores insulin production both in the normal case as well as in the development of Type 1 Diabetes, when insulin production is disrupted.

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Multiple Sclerosis    |    Gardenia Gonzalez Gil, Living Pixels

This Maya animation describes some immunological and brain barrier defects found in patients with Multiple Sclerosis. It illustrates how these defects progressively deteriorate neuronal signal transmission.

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Crohn’s Disease    |    Gardenia Gonzalez Gil, Living Pixels

The first two parts of this animation illustrate features of innate and adaptive immunity relevant to Crohn’s disease. The third part describes the mechanism of action of lipoxin resolving infection and inflammation, leading to restoration of healthy gastrointestinal function.

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Clonal Selection Theory    |    Etsuko Uno

‘Fighting Infection by Clonal Selection’ was created to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a revolutionary theory called ‘Clonal Selection’ by Nobel Laureate, Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet. The animation shows how clonal selection works during a bacterial infection of the throat.

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Cancer is Not One Disease    |    Kate Patterson

This animation draws on the experience of a patient living with pancreatic cancer to show some of the complexities of cancer. Over a long period of time, thousands of molecular ‘mistakes’ can accumulate in a cell and increase the risk of cancer. Now, these specific mistakes can be detected in individual cancer patients, thereby offering new hope for the future of personalised treatments.

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Insulin Receptor & Type II Diabetes    |    Maja Divjak

This animation describes the role of the insulin receptor in type 2 diabetes. It focuses on the very recent discovery of how the hormone insulin actually binds to the receptor on the surface of cells, as determined by Professor Mike Lawrence’s laboratory at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

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