IMMUNE CELL PROFILE
CD4 T Cell
The Barista
About this cell
CD4 T Cell
- The Barista
The CD4 T cell is like a barista — it takes orders and serves up the right signals to keep the whole immune team energised and on task. Without CD4 T cells, the rest of the immune system wouldn’t know what to do. HIV specifically targets these cells, which is why monitoring CD4 counts is so important in HIV care.
Illustrations Credit: Dr Kiho Tanaka is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.
Content Review Credit: Carles Araya is a peer navigator at Living Positive Victoria and a member of the Melbourne HIV Cure Consortium Community Advisory Board. Dr Hannah King and Dr Paula Cevaal are postdoctoral research fellows at the Peter Doherty Institute.
These are simplified summaries of what the cells do in our body. In fact, they do a lot more than what we have shown here, for example they also play crucial roles in controlling cancer. We hope through this graphical summary people feel more familiar with their own immune cells and this serves as a fun introduction to cell biology!