(a) Define innate immunity including how it differs from adaptive immunity (10% of marks). (b) Outline the components of the innate immune system including their role in the immune response (90% of marks).
Expectations for a high scoring answer were:
(a) a definition of innate immunity featuring its presence since birth, the non-specificity and lack of
memory when compared with the adaptive immune system,
(b) an outline of different components of innate immune system including; physicochemical (skin,
mucus, cilia, gastric acid), humoral (lysosome, complement, acute phase proteins) and cellular
(neutrophils, macrophages, natural killer cells, mast cells). In addition to listing a number of these
examples, a brief explanation (“outline”) of their function should be included.