Our second highlight is on talks that focused on understanding malaria parasite transmission, motility and emergence of anti-malarial resistance, as well as the neutrophil activity in malaria friend or foe. Prof. Frischknech (Ruprecht-Karis University, Heidelberg) gave a lecture on ‘’Transmission of malaria – from microscopy to experimental vaccine studies’’.
March 2020
Immuno-Ethiopia: Malaria Highlight 1
Our first Immuno-Ethiopia highlight is on talks by Dr Yaw Bediako (PhD), WACCBIP, University of Ghana, about “Immunity to malaria’’ and “Exploring naturally acquired immunity to malaria: Systems Immunology and Human Cohort Studies”. He highlighted the global malaria burden emphasizing that Africa contributes to 75% of this burden.
Single-cell RNA-Seq of BAL samples from COVID-19 patients
A recent study by Liao et al., “comprehensively characterised the lung immune microenvironment of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from 3 severe and 3 mild COVID-19 patients and 8 previously reported healthy lung controls through single-cell RNA sequence combined with TCR-sequencing.”
Type I interferon co-stimulation of MAIT cell function
Recent evidence suggest that Type I-interferons (T1-IFNs) IFN-α and IFN-β can activate of MAITs. However, this mechanism is not fully understood. Researchers from New Zealand aimed to investigate this and specifically focused on the role of T1-IFN-mediated activation of MAITs in the context of MR1-TCR activation.
The (Un)usual Suspect-Novel Coronavirus Identified
The 2019 novel coronavirus (CoV) causes fatal pneumonia that has claimed over 1300 lives, with more than 52000 confirmed cases of infection by February 13, 2020, all in the span of just over a month. But, what is this virus? Is it a new virus altogether? Where did it come from?