Description:

Microbiology-Immunology Seminar Series

The immune system takes advantage of two distinct types of responses to deal with invading pathogens. "Innate" immune cells are rapidly activated and provide a broadly protective response whereas "adaptive" immune cells emerge later and provide an antigen specific response with durable memory. Lymphocytes can be classified into innate, innate-like, and adaptive subsets based on their use of variable or invariant receptors to detect invading pathogens and the kinetics of their response. Despite these distinctions the architecture of the developmental programs that produce multiple lineages of innate and adaptive lymphoid cells share many essential features. I will discuss the similarities and differences of the transcription programs that regulate the development of innate and innate-like lymphoid cells with an emphasis on natural killer (NK) cells and natural killer T (NKT) cells while highlighting the similarities and differences with adaptive T lymphocyte development. These studies provide insight into the redundancy between innate lymphoid programs but also expose unique characteristics that may form the basis for understanding the essential functions of each of these cell types.

Barbara Kee, PhD

University of Chicago

Host: Dr. Chyung-Ru Wang, PhD