Certification in Integrative Immunopathology

for the Complementary, Integrative and Natural Healthcare Practitioner

Welcome to The CMA Certification in Integrative Immunopathology

Introduction by CMA President, Jayney Goddard MSc FCMA FRSM


Certification in Integrative Immunopathology for the Complementary / Integrative Medicine Practitioner

An introduction to the ways in which immunity can promote health or cause disease

By Dr. Peter H Kay, Immunopathologist, Molecular Pathologist, Geneticist and Cancer Biologist.

Narration and Bonus Module featuring Dr Frank Sabatino FCMA, Doctor of Chiropractic and PhD in Cell Biology and Neuroendocrinology, Natural Health Specialist.


Introduction from CMA President, Jayney Goddard MSc, FCMA, FRSM

Welcome to this incredible course! I am beyond delighted to be able to bring this to you from The CMA as this is a huge leap forward for the field of complementary, integrative and natural healthcare. In this course, we have two giants of the integrative immunopathology field, bringing your their unique take on ways that we practitioners can take advantage of a whole new holistic approach to better understand and serve our patients and clients.

I know you'll agree with me when I say how important it is that we health practitioners understand how the immunological machinery works because, as you'll appreciate, immunological aberrations underpin the pathogenesis of most diseases. The trouble is that many of us don't get the in-depth training we need to understand disease initiation and development. There's no doubt that complementary and integrative practitioners are brilliant at the work we do - but think how much more help we could be to our clients if we had more knowledge about immunology and immunopathology - but from the integrative health perspective.

I am so glad you are here, and I urge you to take this Certification course (which is also CMA CPD certified) so that you can work more effectively with your clients and patients. The information in this course will also help you to liaise more easily with patient's conventional care team - as you'll understand all the terminology and pathology and this will be of inestimable value if you have a shared responsibility with them for your patient/client.


About this course

This course has been prepared in collaboration with The Complementary Medical Association (The CMA) to enable all health practitioners and students of the medical and biological sciences to understand more about the different component parts of the immune system and how they interact to support health or cause disease.

In this course, you'll learn how a perfectly normal mother’s immune system can attack her unborn child, how some parts of the immune system can cause disease by mimicking the uncontrolled action of a hormone, how a healthy transplanted organ can attack and even kill the recipient, how the AIDS virus causes immune deficiency, how immune dysregulation can interfere with the blood clotting process to cause strokes, heart disease, miscarriages and much more.

You'll also learn how a healthy mother’s immunity can cause development of autism, autism spectrum disorders, learning difficulties and dyslexia for example, in her children in later years.

Recent advances are included which highlight discoveries which show how a wide range of neurological disorders are caused by a range of different brain specific autoantibodies.

You'll also find out about the various ways in which immune mechanisms have been harnessed to develop exciting new approaches to cancer treatment.

The course introduces the biological significance of low levels of autoimmunity found in healthy people, the 'natural autoantibodies'.

You'll learn about ways in which autoimmune diseases may be treated and which foods and other environmental factors can be used to promote health by manipulation of the immune machinery.

Finally, you'll be able to benefit from the wonderful bonus module video where Dr Frank Sabatino brings everything together - so that all the technicalities and complexities of the immune system are described in such a way that it becomes easy to see how all this valuable information applies to our patients and clients - and he also discusses evidence-based immune support strategies that you can integrate into your practice right away.

How to navigate this course:

Please work your way through the content for each module, using either the text, audio narration or both. We have found that students get the most out of the course by using as many learning options as possible. The narration expands a little on the written content too - as an extra source of support.

Then, when you are ready, please take the quizzes after each module (except the final video lecture). You must answer each question correctly in order to progress to the next question and then the next module. There is no limit to the number of times you can answer each question.

Course contents:

  • Adaptive Immune systems.
  • T cell immunity. T cell functions, B cell immunity. Antibodies, how they are produced.
  • Generation of diversity. How different foreign substances are recognised by the immune system.
  • IgE and allergy. Immunity in children, Immune deficiencies.
  • The Innate immunity system.
  • The complement system. Inflammatory cytokines. Natural killer cells. The defensin system. Mannose binding lectin. Bacteriophages.
  • The major histocompatibility complex (MHC).
  • HLA antigen system. The role of the MHC in transplantation and disease. Graft versus host disease.
  • Auto-immune diseases: Organ specific autoimmunity. Immune complex diseases. Detection of auto-immune diseases. The biological significance of natural autoantibodies.
  • Introduction to autoimmune mediated neurological disorders: Autism, developmental defects and heart disease caused by maternal immunity.
  • Red cell serology: Diseases caused by red cell antibodies, haemolytic disease of the new-born and transfusion reactions.
  • Introduction to a newly discovered non-inflammatory form of asthma.
  • Introduction to monoclonal antibodies: How they are produced. How they are used as valuable new treatments for many disorders including cancer.
  • Introduction to new ways in which immune mechanisms have been harnessed to treat cancer.

Bonus Module:

The Practical Application of Integrative Immunopathology for the Complementary / Integrative Health Practitioner, with Dr Frank Sabatino in discussion with CMA President, Jayney Goddard.

In this session you'll learn how everything fits together so that you can work more effectively with your clients. Dr Sabatino will discuss exactly how he supports his clients who are compromised by immune issues and the many ways that complementary medical and natural healthcare approaches work to dramatically improve health.

Plus . . .

  • Nutritional strategies to decrease inflammation
  • Effects of gut microbiota on the innate and adaptive immune systems and autoimmune disease
  • Direct effects of Vitamin D on the innate and adaptive immune systems
  • How to reduce the aging and dysregulation of the immune system
  • Impact of exercise, obesity and stress on the immune system
  • Exercise - what is the 'optimum dose'?
  • Mindset, meditation and stress response management
  • Epigenetics
  • . . . and much more!

CMA Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Successful completion of this course will entitle you to claim 50% of your year's CMA CPD activities.


You will be awarded this beautifully printed certificate upon successful completion of this course

About your teacher, Dr Peter Kay

Dr Peter Kay

I was born in the UK and in the early part of my scientific career, I specialised in blood group serology and haematology. In 1974, I moved to Australia to establish a kidney transplant unit at the Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia.

I later became a member of the Department of Pathology at the University of Western Australia, specialising in Immunopathology. In the late 1980s, I was awarded my PhD on immuno-genetics. In 1989, I founded the first Molecular Pathology laboratory in Western Australia in the Faculty of Dentistry and Medicine at the University of Western Australia. I remained as Head of the Molecular Pathology laboratory until I retired from Academia in 2001.

During that time, I conducted world-class research into tissue regeneration, genetics and epigenetics (especially with respect to DNA methylation), cancer biology and molecular genetic aspects of cancer diagnosis.

I have supervised well over 20 PhD students and helped launch their scientific careers in many areas of clinico-pathological research.

As part of my supervisory role, I always taught my PhD students the importance of scientific ethics and explained their responsibilities as future senior scientists. For example, I taught them how important it is to properly acknowledge the intellectual contributions of others. I also gave students the confidence to develop original thought processes and critically assess the validity of information.

Thinking originally means that you shouldn’t accept news headlines or hear-say as the final truth. Instead, it is critical that you equip yourself with the necessary skills to become an independent thinker. At The Complementary Medical Association, we recognise the importance of critical thinking and offer world-renowned educational programmes to teach you how to develop critical assessment qualities.

Because of the scientific quality and originality of our work, I and my PhD candidates are proud to have published 93 papers in world-class scientific journals. In recognition of the fact that I had become skilful in distinguishing between bad science and good science, I was invited by the National Health and Medical Research Councils of Australia and New Zealand as a senior peer reviewer to assess the suitability and validity of new scientific research and many grant applications for funding. I undertook these assessments over many years.

Now, as part of The Complementary Medical Association team, I am delighted to be able to contribute the results of these experiences to our educational programmes. Hybrid vigour is one of the most important biological phenomena ever recognised. It involves the breeding together of two genetically different members of plant or animal species. The application of hybrid vigour has enormous commercial and health benefits. Even so, after almost a century of research, it is still unclear what drives hybrid vigour.

As a reflection of my original thinking, I put forward an exciting new way in which hybrid vigour may be brought about. The new proposed mechanism is shown in the submitted Patent Applications WO 2005/075668 and WO 2007/012138.

As part of The Complementary Medical Association team, I enjoy discussing these possibilities with our students, showing them how I developed new original thoughts throughout my scientific career. Finally, I am both a lifelong learner and a lifelong science educator. That is why I am proud to be part of The Complementary Medical Association team, so that I can fuel my curiosity and that of our students with new discoveries and add a further layer of teaching experiences.

Dr Peter Kay


About your course narrator, Dr Frank Sabatino

Dr Sabatino is a Chiropractic physician who also has a Ph.D. in cell biology and neuroendocrinology from the Emory University School of Medicine. The book of his original research on the effects of brain peptides on the regulation of reproductive hormones was published in 1988. While an assistant professor at the Health Science Center of the University of Texas School of Medicine, he did extensive landmark research on calorie restriction, stress and aging, and has published a number of major scientific papers in some of the most well-respected peer reviewed journals in the fields of cell biology, endocrinology, and neuroscience. He has also written numerous articles for lay magazines and journals in the areas of clinical nutrition, healthy weight loss, women’s hormones, stress management, addiction, and healthy aging.

He has been featured in a variety of books, news articles, and cable TV programs including CNN. Dr Sabatino is a past member of the prestigious Brookdale fellowship in Gerontology and Aging. As a member of the International Association of Hygienic Physicians, he is also widely recognized as an expert in water only fasting and integrative health care. He is also a proponent of Oriental energy arts and a long time teacher and student of tai-chi and qi gong.

Dr Sabatino is the past Health Director of some of the world's leading health centres where he has cared for, lectured and inspired thousands of people for 45 years. He is also the Science and Research Director of The Complementary Medical Association.

Dr Sabatino is the Director of Health Education for the National Health Association in the USA, Research Consultant on the Board of the world-renowned True North Fasting Research Foundation, and he is Board Certified in Addiction Care from the American College of Addictionology and Compulsive Disorders.

Dr Frank Sabatino

Frequently Asked Questions


When does the course start and finish?
The course starts now and never ends! It is a completely self-paced online course - you decide when you start and when you finish.
How long do I have access to the course?
How does lifetime access sound? After enrolling, you have unlimited access to this course for as long as you like - across any and all devices you own.
What if I am unhappy with the course?
We would never want you to be unhappy! If you are unsatisfied with your purchase, contact us in the first 30 days and we will give you a full refund.

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