Scientists are getting a better handle on the complexities of how immunity works.October 10, 2025Ibrahim Rayintakath Attentive readers might have noticed my absence over the last couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to recover from a bout of illness. It got me thinking about the immune system, and how little I know about my own immune health. The vast array of cells, proteins, and biomolecules that works to defend us from disease is mind-bogglingly complicated. Immunologists are still getting to grips with how it all works. Those of us who aren’t immunologists are even more in the dark. I had my flu jab last week and have no idea how my immune system responded. Will it protect me from the flu virus this winter? Is it “stressed” from whatever other bugs it has encountered in the last few months? And since my husband had his shot at the same time, I can’t help wondering how our responses will compare. So I was intrigued to hear about a new test that is being developed to measure immune health. One that even gives you a score.
Writer David Ewing Duncan hoped that the test would reveal more about his health than any other he’d ever taken. He described the experience in a piece published jointly by MIT Technology Review and Aventine. The test David took was developed by John Tsang at Yale University and his colleagues. The team wanted to work out a way of measuring how healthy a person’s immune system might be.
