lesson in virology class 11-17-05

NK (natural killer) cells are known as the snipers of the immune system, they are born killers.
Now in virology class my teacher is describing the non-specific killing in NK cells.. he asks,
can you indiscrimnately kill somebody? try it! ( can you believe this Guy). then he say's no first you must choose and kill hence we have the CTL's ( cytoxic T cells that are specific as to the cells that they kill).
he then makes a comparison between the NK cells and the CTL's; how will you kill a rabbit? one shot with a cannon or with a pellet gun? cannon is good because yeah now we know that rabbit is dead, but there will be no more rabbit either and a big mess, similarily NK cells if activated to start killing will destroy all other cells...Aha , if they recognise MHCI molecule on target cell they will not kill because they recognise it as self so do not be scared (all nucleated cells have MHCI). so moral of story, specific cell killing with CTL's are better than non-specific killing with NK cells. and if you wanna kill a rabbit do not use a canon.

too bad the kid whose head kept on bobbing because he was sleeping in class when teacher spoke all this hardly caught onto any of the humor or morals learned.
...me? I'm just an observer

Now my analogy:
body:society
NK cells :terrorist ( non specific natural born killers)
MHCI molecule-you belong to a certain sect or religion that saves you since you are now recognised as self ...all other cells you better express this molecule or die!
CTL's : government and law ( recognises the bad cells/ people and trys to get rid of them...however as with auto immune diseases, these cells screw up and destroy the body/society)

a flaw in my analogy...NK cells can protect the body upon infection...I do not see any usefulness in terrorists