the difficult road to assessing immunity

Professor Florian Kern, Chair in Immunology
6.30pm, 15 May 2007
Mayfield House lecture theatre, University of Brighton campus

Immune systems have both an innate aspect and another portion whose components seem to evolve and change subject to contact with pathogens for example (acquired immunity). This lecture will focus on the latter, specifically on a component referred to as cellular immune response.

This response consists of T-lymphocytes, which represent a lineage of lymphocytes with specific receptors, mainly for protein fragments. These cells are divided into further lineages, for example CD4 and CD8 T-lymphocytes. Ideally, by analysing these T-cells we should be able to know about an individual’s ability to respond to certain challenges. For example, by looking at cells specific to a certain virus, we should know whether there is a useful and protective response to this virus.

However, there are technical difficulties related to selecting and measuring the right responses, and even greater difficulties of interpretation. Examples from a common infection will be used to explain why translating what we can measure into clinically useful information is such a difficult task.

Professor Florian Kern is Chair in Immunology at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. He graduated from Dusseldorf, and was previously the Deputy Head of the Institute for Medical Immunology in Berlin.

Please email lectures@bsms.ac.uk to book a place.