Distinguished Scientist Seminar Series featuring Ben Afzali, MD, PhD & Claudia Kemper, PhD

Distinguished Scientist Seminar Series

Ben Afzali, MD, PhD
Earl Stadtman Investigator
Chief, Immunoregulation Section
Kidney Diseases Branch, NIDDK, NIH
&
Claudia Kemper, PhD
Senior Investigator, Immunology Center
Chief, Complement and Inflammation Research Section
DIR, NHLBI, NIH

Titles & Abstracts:

“Unravelling complex biology using high throughput sequencing”

The Immunoregulation Section studies the basic molecular mechanisms of tissue inflammation using approaches enabled by the use of next generation sequencing technologies. In this talk, we will provide illustrative examples of how an unbiased analysis of the data can provide novel insights into the basic mechanisms that underlie tissue inflammation, injury and repair, including unexpected discoveries of cell-intrinsic Vitamin D systems operational in T cells.

“New tricks for a very old dog: the complosome as orchestrator of normal cell physiology”

Liver-derived and serum-circulating complement is undeniably quintessential for innate immunity by detecting and eliminating infectious microorganisms. However, unexpectedly, cell-autonomous complement expression and its intracellular activities emerged recently as fundamental driver of normal cell metabolism and physiology. In consequence, perturbations in intracellular complement – coined the complosome – are associated with a range of human diseases. During this presentation, I will provide an update on our current knowledge about complosome activities and its regulation in health and disease with focus on the control of T cell biology.