Summary

I.       The adaptive immune system: B cells, T cells- diverse, self-tolerant, and specific 

II.      Thymic Selection: positive and negative selection, specificity from weak amino-acids, extreme value distribution

III.     Quorum sensing for peripheral tolerance, and persistent infections

IV.     B cells: Viruses, Antibodies, Antigens, and the puzzle of low HIV spike density                                    

V.      Affinity Maturation: Germinal Center, Rapid evolution of antibodies, Fisher and Price equations

VI.      Fitness & Evolution: Competition for virus capture and proliferation signal from helper T cells

VII.     Optimal density for eliciting potent antibodies; implications for nanoparticle vaccination & HIV spikes

VIII.   Broadly neutralizing Antibodies: Controlling affinity maturation against a mutable virus


Arup K. Chakraborty 

T cell projects:

=  =

Andrej Kosmrlj,       Hanrong Chen,         Tom Butler,         Eric Huseby,         Sam Melton,              Rose Yin                      

(A. Jha, E. Shakhnovich, E. Huseby)

B cell projects:

Shenshen Wang,      Assaf Amitai,       Saeed Mahdisoltani,  Federica Ferretti    

   

Isaac Newton Institute                               SPL seminar                           4 December, 2023