Deirdra writes:
Hello Stephanie,
i hope this message doesn’t bother you but after listening to the podcast regarding the Lymphocyte trafficking paper i had a few questions. am i right in thinking that the paper loosely outlines that treatments and immune responses which occur at Z5 are more fruitful in their outcome because there are more APC and lymphocytes in the blood system to not only recognise the antigens but also able to carry out their effector role in actually dealing with the virus/pathogen etc?
thank you, Deirdra
Kang Liu writes:
Dear Vincent,
Happy New Year! The best thing over this winter break for me is to go back to listen to Twiv which then led to to your new Podcast Immune. I listened to all three episodes and enjoyed them so much!
A big “Thank you” to three of you for spending time to do such a great job. I love the way three of you work together, particularly having Stephanie, an aspiring graduate student with such fresh and inquisitive mind. You make immunology sound fun and not intimidating.
Here is a comment on “Lymphocytes after dark”. The oscillation of lymphocyte in and out of lymph nodes is really nicely related to the influence of circadian rhythm on hematopoietic stem cell and their niche in the bone marrow – check out work from Paul Frenette’s group.
Here is a new read suggestion: a new paper contributes to categorizing adipose tissue as a new immune organ.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29221731
“White Adipose Tissue Is a Reservoir for Memory T Cells and Promotes Protective Memory Responses to Infection”
By Yasmine Belkaid’s team.
It was moving to listen to female graduate student’s conversation with mother regarding family life and science. Here is a link to a lovely article in Nature Immunology written by Akiko Iwasaki, an outstanding scientist and a loving mother.
“Balancing family life with a science career”
https://www.nature.com/articles/ni.3199
Looking forward to new episodes.
Warmly,
Kang
Kang Liu, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Microbiology & Immunology
Columbia University Medical Center
Anne writes:
Hello, Immune Team!
I’m a crossover listener (from the TWiX series of podcasts) and have been enjoying this podcast very much. This episode describing CAR T cells was informative, and while I didn’t understand everything, Dr. Leifer did a very good job of explaining the complexities.
Several years back, I attempted an online immunology course, and was so put off by how the terminology was presented (it seemed like an information dump, with so much memorization needed) that I abandoned the course. I understand that immunology is complex, and that the designations of cell types is historical (general names based on less well-defined or more general functionality), but the lack of specificity or clarity in the names makes learning about them challenging. But I’ve wanted to develop a broader understanding of the subject, so I’m hoping the Immune podcast will help.
And so far it has! My very rudimentary knowledge of some of the terms used in this podcast was reawakened, and Dr. Leifer’s explanations helped develop a clearer picture of the processes she was describing. No doubt the repetition of these explanations will help listeners like me become more conversant in the basic terminology and processes. Learning!
I was intrigued to learn about the use of viruses to help bring some cancers under control, and spent time reading about polio virus used to help cure people of their cancers (one example: <https://www.cbsnews.com/news/polio-cancer-treatment-duke-university-60-minutes-scott-pelley/>).
On the podcast, it was also mentioned that this CAR T immunotherapy could be used to target latent viruses, but I didn’t find as much information about this topic. At some point I hope you can discuss this; there are so many latent viruses (the HSV family of viruses that lead to recurrent infections and shingles, hepatitis B, and HIV for example) that being able to reduce their impacts seems a worthwhile endeavor.
Thanks again for all the podcasts/learning opportunities. It is much appreciated. Looking forward to more podcasts.
Regards,
Anne