Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. From now until the launch of Oxford Events, new events cannot be published or edited on OxTalks while all existing records are migrated to the new platform. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period.
From 16th, Oxford Events will launch on a new website: events.ox.ac.uk, and event submissions will resume. You will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
It is very likely that the human immune system is much more complex than that of inbred mice. Continuous infectious disease exposure and the need to live much longer with limited fecundity all suggest a much more capable immune system is needed to allow the species to survive. But if there are novel immune mechanisms in human beings our ability to characterize them is very limited in living human beings and so we have used discarded immune tissues, principally tonsils and spleens, to create broadly functional human immune organoids. These organoids can respond to vaccines with specific T and B cells, and show innate stimulation. They are also susceptible to genetic manipulation using CRISPR based methods. We can combine them with skin or lung organoids in order to recreate some of the classical interactions important in graft rejection or infectious disease responses. While still in the early days, this approach holds considerable promise to discover and explore human specific immune responses while also having the advantage of an in vitro system.
