The Immunology Podcast

Guest: Dr. Bana Jabri is the Sarah and Harold Lincoln Thompson Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Research Director of the Celiac Disease Center at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on innate and mucosal immunity, particularly in celiac disease, autoimmune disorders, and inflammatory bowel disease. She talks about the mec…

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 final of five special episodes from the meeting. Brenda and Jason talk about sessions on mucosal immunity, emerging pathogens, and having …

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 fourth of five special episodes from the meeting. Brenda and Jason talk about micelles for drug delivery and how helminth infection affect…

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 third of five special episodes from the meeting. Highlights include Dr. Anthony Fauci’s talk on the COVID-19 pandemic response and Dr. Dou…

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 second of five special episodes from the meeting. Brenda and Jason discuss sessions on peripheral neuroimmune interactions and tumor cellu…

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 g…

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 p…

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 s…

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 Resou…

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…

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! Dow…

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: Regist…

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…

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 firs…

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…

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 Pr…

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: Abstrac…

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…

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 necess…

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 Product…

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 co…

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 h…

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…

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 T…

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 wi…

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…

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…

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 ce…

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 …

Guest: Dr. Hanover Matz is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Maryland, who recently completed his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Helen Dooley. He discusses why sharks may have evolved adaptive immune systems, the role of T cells, mucosal immunity, and antibodies, and working with sharks in the lab. Featured Products and Resources: Keep c…

Guest: Dr. Michael Alonso is a Scientific Co-Founder, and Vice President of Immunology & Pharmacology at Bolt Biotherapeutics, a biotechnology company developing immunotherapies that activate myeloid cells. He discusses targeting tumors by covering them in “eat me” signals, considerations for moving drugs into the clinic, and building teams in biot…

Guest: Dr. Alice Long is an Associate Member of the Center for Translational Immunology at Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason. The Long lab is focused on understanding how tolerance is lost in autoimmunity, specifically as it related to type 1 diabetes. Dr. Long discusses the work she presented at the American Association of Immunologist…

Guest: Dr. Shruti Naik is an Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at New York University Langone Medical Center. She studies immunity in the epithelial tissues that line our body to understand how environmental stimuli collaborate with genetic factors to influence health and drive disease at these interfaces. She discusses the work she’s pres…

Guest: Dr. Gwendalyn Randolph is the Emil R. Unanue Distinguished Professor in the Department of Immunology and Pathology at Washington University in St. Louis. Research in her lab integrates the study of monocytes, monocyte-derived cells, and dendritic cells with vascular and lymphatic vessel biology. She discusses the work she’s presenting at the…

Guest: Dr. Michael Rosenblum is a Professor of Dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco. His lab seeks to to understand how immune responses are regulated in tissues and how this knowledge can be exploited for therapeutic benefit. They are currently investigating how regulatory T cells (Tregs) control immune responses in tissues, …

Guest: Dr. Gary Koretzky is President of the American Association of Immunologists, Vice Provost for Academic Integration at Cornell University, Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Director of the Cornell Center for Immunology. He talks about how he began his career in immunology, using science to guide Cornell’s response to COVID-…

Guest: Dr. Florian Krammer is a Professor of Vaccinology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His lab focuses on understanding broadly-reactive immune responses against the surface glycoproteins of RNA viruses such as influenza, with the goal to develop better vaccines and novel therapeutics. He talks about his lab’s shift to COVID-19 resear…

Guest: Dr. Andy Kokaji is a Senior Director of Immunology, and Dr. Hannah Lee is a Senior Director of Product Management, at STEMCELL Technologies. They discuss their career paths and how they develop and commercialize products to support scientists worldwide. Featured Products and Resources: Keep current with the latest in human immunology news. S…

Guest: Dr. Jennifer Gommerman is a Professor of Immunology at the University of Toronto. Her team has uncovered a novel gut-brain axis that regulates neuroinflammation and is examining the role of B lymphocytes in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients and in animal models of MS. More recently, she has been studying the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 in…

Guest: Dr. Caetano Reis e Sousa is the Assistant Research Director and Senior Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute. His lab studies the molecular pathways that trigger dendritic cells into action. He talks about the mechanisms of dendritic cell cross-presentation, RNA interference, and dendritic cell progenitors in influenza. Featured Produc…

Guest: Dr. Francesco Colucci is a Wellcome Investigator and Professor of Immunology at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on natural killer (NK) and other innate lymphoid cells, as well as immunogenetics. He talks about uterine NK cells and their education, and falling in love with research as a physician. Featured Products and Resou…

Guest: Dr. Mihai Netea is a Professor of Experimental Medicine at Radboud University Nijmegen and a Professor of Immunometabolism at the University of Bonn. He discusses the mechanisms of trained immunity, transmission of immune traits across generations via epigenetics, and how some vaccines can enhance immunity to other pathogens. Featured Produc…

Guest: Dr. De’Broski Herbert is an Associate Professor of Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. The Herbert lab is exploring the immunoregulatory and regenerative mechanisms operating at the mucosal interface. He discusses his recent paper on IL-33 sources and secretion, his postdoctoral fellowship in South Africa, and the M1/M2 macrophage …

Guest: Dr. Keke Fairfax is an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and the Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of Utah. Her lab uses helminth parasite Schistosoma mansoni as a tool to understand the consequences of IL-4 induced immuno-modulation. She explains how helminth infections can reduce the efficacy o…

Guest: Dr. Tri Phan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and a Conjoint Professor at the University of New South Wales. He runs the Intravital Microscopy Lab, which aims to understand the checks and balances that control B cell responses. His team uses two-photon microscopy to image cells in live animals, includin…

Guest: Dr. Jenny Ting is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Genetics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and served as the President of the American Association of Immunologists from 2020-2021. Her lab discovered the NLR protein family, and their recent research interests include oxidative phosphorylation in HIV, th…

Guest: Dr. Dario Vignali is the Frank Dixon Chair in Cancer Immunology and Vice Chair and Professor of Immunology at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. His lab studies various aspects of T cell regulation, and recently generated a new mouse model to target conventional CD4 T cells. Featured Products and Resources: Keep current with the la…

Guest: Dr. Anil Bhushan is a Professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and Co-Founder of Deciduous Therapeutics, an aging therapeutics company developing a novel class of immune-modulatory therapies. His lab focuses on understanding how the immune system senses and tunes its response to senescent cells in disease a…

Guest: Dr. Michael Burton is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas in Dallas. His lab studies the complex interactions between the immune and nervous systems that lead to pain, depression, and sickness. Featured Products and Resources: STEMCELL Technologies is hiring! Use EasySepTM to isolate highly purified immune cells in as little as…

Guest: Dr. Frances Lund is the Charles H. McCauley Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her lab showed that B cells not only make antibodies, but also produce cytokines that modulate the microenvironment. She currently studies the many roles of B cells, how to target B cells gone bad, and…