© Pint of Science, 2025. All rights reserved.
What can we do when our immune system turns from protector to problem? From enhancing kidney defences before transplant, to re-training immune cells gone rogue, we explore innovative strategies to influence the body’s powerful - and often dysfunctional - response to infection.
Drugging the kidney: In from the cold?
Professor Kevin Marchbank
(Professor of Complement Biology, Newcastle University)
So just how do you stop our bodies immensely powerful immune system from killing a kidney transplant? That is the question that drove my passion to find solutions and after years of research into the mysterious world of innate immunity, I came up with an answer. Make our own bodies defences super powered and make them easy to deliver – not to the person but to the kidney – when it’s in the ice bath between donor and recipient(s) – is this the “perfect solution?” (pun intended) – come and make your own minds up!

Am I the drama? A story of autoimmunity
Dr Gaby Barran
(Research Associate, University of Sunderland)
Don’t you just hate it when your immune system betrays you? Over-reacting to peanuts, pollen or just your own cells! Well, tonight I want to show you how we can use our own cells to fix it! Lots of clever scientists around the world have figured out how we can send our immune cells back to school to re-educate them when they aren’t doing their job properly! And I’m hoping to convince you all to become fellow Immu-nerds and join our crusade to teach our immune systems to take a chill pill every once in a while…

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Other Station East Pub events
2025-05-20
The future of movement
Station East Pub
1 Hills Street, Gateshead, Newcastle, NE8 2AS , United Kingdom
2025-05-21
Science and Storytelling
Station East Pub
1 Hills Street, Gateshead, Newcastle, NE8 2AS , United Kingdom