EPPIcenter seminar: Andrea Graham- Evolution of Host /Parasite interactions- cytokines, antibodies, and selection pressure.

Andrea Graham is an evolutionary ecologist with strong interests in the processes that drive heterogeneity in hosts, parasites, and diseases.  Her lab aims to understand how natural selection has shaped strategies for both host defense and parasite transmission. We are especially interested in discovering why hosts are so heterogeneous in immune responsiveness. Their laboratory methods will be familiar to immunologists, but their questions and quantitative methods are drawn from evolutionary ecology.

Of the myriad molecules that power the mammalian immune system, her favorites are cytokines and antibodies. Cytokines are intercellular signalling molecules that determine the type and magnitude of parasite-killing mechanisms enabled; antibodies are among the most potent and specific of those mechanisms. Thanks to excellent recent graduate alumnae, they study defense mechanisms of insect hosts, too. They assess effects of strong responses upon both host and parasite fitness, and the selection pressures that shape speed and specificity of responses.

Join the EPPIcenter in welcoming Dr Andrea Graham as a seminar speaker.

The EPPIcenter at UCSF aims to advance the understanding of infectious diseases to reduce global morbidity and mortality. We believe that the greatest success in the fight against infectious diseases will come through a highly interdisciplinary, systems epidemiology approach, connecting traditionally siloed theoretical work, technology development, generation and collection of empiric data, and analysis using statistical and mathematical modeling. 

https://ucsf.zoom.us/my/teresamoeller?pwd=VmRlNnNXV1VBN04rMTBTd0hmSDA1QT09