Putting immunity under the microscope (Free Astronomy Public Lectures)

Presented by Prof. Sarah Russell on 11 September 2015.

2015 has been decreed the International Year of Light by the United Nations, and in recognition of this we expand our public astronomy lecture series from telescopes to microscopes. Our immune system protects us from infections and cancer when it works well, and caused autoimmune diseases when it goes wrong. Understanding how immunity is regulated has enabled the development of vaccines, immunosuppressive drugs, and cancer immunotherapies, but gaps in our understanding have prevented development of vaccines to all infectious agents, and mean many autoimmune diseases are still difficult to manage. By linking the expertise in physics at Swinburne with the immunological proficiency at PeterMac, we have developed novel approaches to watching the immune response as it unfolds. These studies are beginning to highlight new paradigms by which immunity is regulated. In this talk, I will describe the challenges and rewards of this interdisciplinary research, and highlight how our work reveals the fascinating mechanisms by which we tread the fine line between too much and too little immunity.