Written by Sheri Kuslak, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

When discussing chemokines and chemotaxis of immune cells to an injury site I describe college students’ response to the smell of pizza. For example imagine a classroom containing a dozen freshly baked pizzas being similar to an injury site in the human body. As the smell of pizza (chemokines) wafts through the air into the hallways the students (immune cells) follow the smell to the source (chemotaxis). Once the students (immune cells) find the source they begin eating the pizza (healing the injury through specialized processes). Once the pizza is gone (injury is healed), the pizza smell (chemokines) subsides therefore not drawing in any more students to the classroom (the former injury site).