Episodes

In May 2023, we attended IMMUNOLOGY2023, the annual meeting of the American Association of Immunologists in Washington, DC, and recorded daily episodes discussing highlights of the previous 24 hours. Here is the first of five special episodes from the meeting, in which Jason and Brenda summarize symposia on B and T-helper cells, and metabolic and gut microbiota. They discuss antigenic imprinting, lupus immunophenotyping and sex differences, dengue vaccines, and cytomegalovirus research. Feature...

Guest: Dr. Prasanna Jagannathan is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University. His research focuses on the mechanisms of clinical immunity to malaria. He talks about how repeated exposure to malaria can lead to tolerance without symptoms, promising vaccines and treatments to prevent reinfection, and the role of innate immune cells. He also discusses shifting from religious studies to teaching to medicine, and establishing ...

Guest: Dr. Joshua Brody is the Director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai. The Brody lab studies basic and applied tumor immunology for the development of cancer immunotherapies, particularly for lymphomas and melanomas. He talks about dendritic cells to improve oncolytic virus immunotherapy and in situ vaccination to improve PD-1 blockade responses. Featured Products and Resources: IMMUNOLOGY2023 will be held May 11-15 in Washington, DC. Regis...

Guest: Dr. Doug Green is the Peter C. Doherty Endowed Chair of Immunology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. His research focuses on the central mechanisms of cell death, survival, and the immune response. He talks about what happens when cell death fails, the role of Myc, and setting up collaborations in science. Featured Products and Resources: Register for IMMUNOLOGY2023 Watch a Free Webinar on Best Practices and Innovative Technologies for T Cell Therapy Research. The Immunology S...

Guests: Dr. Miriam Merad is the President & Scientific Programme Committee Co-Chair of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS) and Dr. Mark Davis is the Scientific Programme Committee Chair. They talk about what to expect at the 2023 IUIS Congress being held November 27 – December 2 in Cape Town, South Africa. They discuss hosting the meeting in Africa, the importance of infectious disease research and international collaborations, and the highlights of this year’s program. F...

Guest: Dr. Clovis Palmer is an Assistant Professor at Tulane University. He talks about how HIV hijacks metabolic processes and the role of HIF-1α in HIV infection. He also discusses using non-human primates to study SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses. Featured Products and Resources: IMMUNOLOGY2023 is taking place in Washington, DC from May 11-15th! Download free immunology wallcharts. The Immunology Science Round Up Bacterial Brain Invasion – Researchers identified a neuroimmune axis that exace...

Guests: Dr. Mark Davis is the President of the American Association of Immunologists, and Drs. Shruti Naik and Daniel Mucida are chairing Major Symposia at the upcoming IMMUNOLOGY2023 meeting in Washington, DC, May 11-15. They discuss what to expect at IMMUNOLOGY2023 and the highlights of this year’s program. Featured Products and Resources: Register for IMMUNOLOGY2023 by March 31 for a special discounted rate. Prepare for your next conference with this toolkit. The Immunology Science Round ...

Guest: Dr. Hao Wu is the Asa and Patricia Springer Professor of Structural Biology at Harvard Medical School. Her lab focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that govern the assembly, regulation, and therapeutic intervention of supramolecular complexes in innate immunity. She talks about cryo-electron microscopy and how her team used it to study the structures of the NLRP3 inflammasome disc, the B cell antigen receptor, and the Gasdermin D pore. She also discusses the role of AlphaFold...

Guest: Dr. Caroline Sokol is a Principal Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her lab studies the innate immune control of allergic disease. She talks about the role of sensory neurons and dendritic cells in allergic responses and insights into allergies from her son’s first bee sting. Featured Products and Resources: Register for IMMUNOLOGY2023! How to Isolate Tregs Using Easy 50 EasySep Magnet The Immunology Science...

Guests: In this special episode, Brenda and Jason chat with Drs. Daylon James and Arun Sharma, the hosts of the Stem Cell Podcast. Recorded in-person and led by Dr. Nicole Quinn from STEMCELL Technologies, the four hosts discuss the impact that podcasting has had on their careers and how it can make science and scientists more accessible. They also talk about the future of science communication and advice for young scientists pursuing careers in academia and industry. Featured Products and Res...

Guest: Dr. Miriam Merad is a Professor of Cancer Immunology and Director of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research focuses on dendritic cells and macrophages. She talks about tissue-resident macrophages in COVID-19 and cancer. She also discusses her new role as President of the International Union of Immunological Societies and bringing the international immunology community together at their upcoming meeting ...

Guest: Dr. Jie Sun is the Harrison Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia. His lab studies respiratory immunology under homeostasis and disease conditions. He talks about how long COVID compares to other post-viral conditions, and his lab’s work investigating mucosal immunity from mRNA vaccines. Featured Products and Resources: Abstract Submission Is Open for IMMUNOLOGY2023! Studying COVID-19 with Air-Liquid Interface Cultures The Immunology Science Round Up Cardiac Autoimmunity...

Guest: Dr. Arthur Liesz is a Professor of Experimental Neurology at the University of Munich. The Liesz lab is interested in the interplay between the brain and the immune system after stroke. He talks about the inflammatory response to stroke, including T cell-modulated microglial activation. He also talks about stroke aftermath, including T cells that remain in the brain and the redistribution of function during recovery. Featured Products and Resources: Keep Current with the Latest in Neur...

Guest: Dr. Vijay Kuchroo is the Samuel L. Wasserstrom Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. His major research interests include the role of co-stimulation in autoimmune diseases, as well as cell surface molecules and regulatory factors that regulate the induction of T cell tolerance and dysfunction. He talks about the conditions necessary to differentiate Th17 cells and their role in autoimmunity. He also discusses his group’s discovery of Tim-3, an inhibitor receptor on T cells wh...

Guests: Dr. Kristin Patrick is an Assistant Professor and Dr. Robert Watson is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University. Their joint lab investigates innate immune regulation during bacterial infection. They talk about gasdermin D and cell death in tuberculosis, and how running a lab together helps them prioritize mentorship. Featured Products and Resources: Use Easy250 EasySepTM Magnet for rapid immune cell isolation from large-volume samples. Win $300 worth of refreshments to fuel you...

Guest: Dr. Henrique Borges da Silva is an Assistant Professor at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. His main research focus is determining how extracellular nucleotides affect transcriptional, metabolic, and functional mechanisms of CD8+ T cells in response to viral infections and cancer. He talks about where extracellular ATP comes from, and how there could be a link between ATP and ADP immunological signaling and the powers of caffeine. Featured Products and Resources: Win $300 worth of refreshmen...

Guest: Dr. Indira Mysorekar is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of Basic and Translational Research at Baylor College of Medicine. Her lab studies host–microbial interactions in the urinary bladder and the placenta. She discusses the role of the microbiome and the aging immune landscape in recurrent urinary tract infections. She also talks about her research on Zika and SARS-CoV-2 in the placenta. Featured Products and Resources: Win $300 worth of refreshments to fuel your immunology journal...

Guest: Dr. Ruth Ley is Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen and Director of the Department of Microbiome Science. Dr. Sara Clasen is a postdoctoral fellow in the same lab. Together, they’re interested in the co-evolution of humans with their microbiomes. They use basic science to investigate the evolutionary history of gut microbes, how they have adapted to life inside humans, and how they affect human biology and health. More recently, they published a pre-print o...

Guest: Dr. Leonardo Ferreira is an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina. The Ferreira lab uses CARs and other engineered immune receptors to dissect how specificity, affinity, and signaling modulate the function of different T cells subsets in tolerance and immunity. He talks about how CAR Tregs could prevent transplant rejection and treat Type 1 diabetes. He also discusses mixing and matching immune cells, the freedom to pursue multiple...

Guest: Dr. Karen Edelblum is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. She discusses γδ T cells and immune-epithelial cross-talk in inflammatory bowel disease. She also talks about intravital microscopy and decorating immunology-themed cakes! Featured Products and Resources: Stay up-to-date with the latest in intestinal cell news. Use EasySep to isolate highly purified immune cells in as little as 8 minutes. The Immunology Science Round...

Guest: Dr. Jonathan Kipnis is the BJC Investigator and Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University in St. Louis. His lab investigates the complex interactions between the immune and nervous systems. He talks about immune activity and surveillance in the brain, and how T cell subsets affect brain function and behavior. He also discusses the brain’s immune reservoir and his lab’s work on cerebrospinal fluid-regulated immune cell mobiliza...

Guest: Dr. Mark Kaplan is the Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine. He is currently the Editor-In-Chief for the American Association of Immunologists’ journal ImmunoHorizons. Much of Dr. Kaplan’s work has focused on understanding the function of transcription factors in the development of T helper cell subsets. He talks about the role of T helper 9 cells in lung inflammation and γδ T cells in wound healing. He also discusses ImmunoHoriz...

Guest: Dr. Laura Mackay is a Professor and Laboratory Head at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne. She talks about her tissue-resident memory T cell research and her ongoing collaboration with Pfizer to identify and validate new targets for cancer therapy. Featured Products and Resources: Isolate cells in as little as 8 minutes with EasySep Webinar: Accelerating T Cell Therapy Research The Immunology Science Round Up Breast Cancer Metastasis...

Guest: Dr. Mark Shlomchik is UPMC Endowed Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of BlueSphere Bio, a company working to create individualized T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. Dr. Shlomchik’s lab focuses on systemic autoimmune diseases, long-lived B cell immunity, and immunopathogenesis. He talks about the role of toll-like receptors in lupus, how his autoimmune disease res...