The role of the immune system is to protect us against disease or invading threats, such as viruses, bacteria and parasites. But how does it do that?
When looking for new treatments for human disease, one possible strategy is to use observations made in the clinic and work back to the cellular causes. In the Davis and Cornall labs, we follow the opposite strategy - we seek new treatments for human disease by first trying to understand how healthy cells function, focusing on the processes most likely to impact on disease.
As our video “The immune system - the battle within” shows, there is no process more interesting to investigate than the immune system (or at least we think so!). The immune system is the defence mechanism within our bodies - it normally protects us from foreign pathogens and other threats such as cancer but it is also the root cause of many debilitating diseases, such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
Watch the Oxford Sparks animation to find out more (Oxford Sparks website)