Title：Innate Immunity: from Insects to Man
Speaker：Jules Hoffmann, Professor at University of Strasbourg
Time：2:30 p.m. June 13
Venue： Lecture Room, 2nd floor of the Auditorium, Yuquanlu campus, UCAS
Abstract
Microbial infections apply considerable pressure on all animal groups (as well as plants) and organisms have developed extremely sophisticated defense mechanisms against these attackers. All animals have a way of defense called first line defense - or innate immunity, which immediately responds to any infectious agent. Only vertebrates (approximately 5% of current species) have also developed a second defense mechanism called adaptive immunity (appeared in fish 450 million years ago).
The lecture will present recent findings on cellular and molecular mechanisms of innate immunity and show that they have appeared in the first multi-cellular organisms (about 1 billion years ago) and were largely preserved since that time. In addition to being the first line of antimicrobial defense in mammals, innate immunity is also critical in this group to activate adaptive immunity, a feature exemplified by the need to use adjuvants invaccination.
( Written by Wu Xuan)
