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Immunity: tightrope between health and disease

Please note that this event has no step-free access.
Past event - 2016
25 May 7-10pm
The Star of Kings, 126 York Way,
London N1 0AX
Sold Out!
The immune system has recently generated a lot of press interest for its exploitation in fighting cancer. Come and join us at the pub and hear from scientists from the Francis Crick Institute at the cutting edge of immunology research! We’ll be talking about the immune system as a double-edged sword: how it can be harnessed to fight disease but also cause illness when things go wrong. What better way than to learn about the body’s own defence system than with beer, quizzes and questions with the scientists themselves?

Living with brain bugs: Toxoplasma gondii

Dr Eva Frickel (Group Leader)
The majority of infectious diseases that have devastated humans over the ages are a direct result of our close interaction with animals. Smallpox arose from domestication of cows and recent epidemics of HIV and Ebola virus were passed from primates. The parasite Toxoplasma gondii depends on domestic and wild cats to complete its life cycle. Infection in humans can occur by ingesting contaminated food or water, with the parasite ultimately traveling to the brain where it mostly lies dormant for the duration of human life. We are studying how a human cell deals with the parasite.

The immune system: the eradicator of disease

Sean O'Farrell (PhD student)
To date, the discipline of immunology is the only field to have eradicated infectious disease from planet earth. Despite major advances in our understanding of immunology over the past decades, its discovery was largely serendipitous. The observation that individuals who recovered from serious infection could not be infected again led to the discovery and implementation of successful vaccine regimens against a number of diseases across the globe. From this the immune system was unveiled – our principal protection mechanism against invading bugs.

What happens when body barrier defence breaks down?

Rafael Di Marco Barros (PhD Student)
Our body’s barriers such as the skin and small intestinal lining form the first lines of our defence against environmental challenges and are also some of the most common sites for cancer. These barriers house large populations of immune cells that rapidly respond to invading bugs. More recently, this immune compartment has been shown to respond to various forms of tissue stress, such as that which can occur during cancer formation. The capacity of the immune system to rapidly respond as and when required must be balanced with the need to keep things quiet in the absence of infection or cancer
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