Dr. Richard Steinman, School of Medicine, conceived The Host Defense Trading Card Game after seeing the facility with which his sons and their peers negotiated a maze of facts and complex rules while playing trading card games.  In fact, his sons Woody, 11, and Max, 10, are consultants on this project.            The project’s goal is to complete the development and testing of a biomedical trading card game.  This game will model the blood system and how cells within it interact to fight infection and tumors.  The cards will feature scanning electron micrographs and other striking images.  By playing the game, students will learn about cytokines and which cells they stimulate, about pathogens and their vulnerability to specific treatments and about molecular signaling pathways important to host defense.

Richard Steinman displays a computer screen image of one of the instructional trading cards for the host defense trading card game.

      The effectiveness of the game will be compared with that of standard material in teaching these concepts to 7th graders, college students and medical students.  It is hoped that this game will promote enjoyable, interactive learning of the complex interworkings which guide the body’s defenses against disease.

      In addition to Steinman’s sons, other consultants include Constance Finseth of the Frick International Studies Academy, and Drs. Timothy Carlos, Simon Watkins, Bruce Rabin, Susan McCarthy, and Donna Stolz from the School of Medicine.

      Dr. Steinman, in his eight years on the faculty at the medical school, has taught hematology, immunology, ethics, and patient care to medical and graduate students both in small group sessions and through lectures.  He also teaches clinical fellows and residents and has mentored postdoctoral students, undergraduates and high school students in laboratory rotations.

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