Immune cells protect our bodies from both self-derived threats and exogenous pathogens, while keeping peace with normal cells and non-harmful commensal microbiota. They have various mechanisms to perform these tasks, a capacity that is essential for maintaining homeostasis. However, these same mechanisms can backfire, resulting in severe disorders such as immunodeficiency, chronic inflammation, allergy, degenerative diseases, and cancer. This course discusses the connections between normal physiology and disease by examining the developmental relationship between innate and adaptive immune cells as well as the functions and malfunctions of immune cells. The course familiarizes students with both basic biological principles (such as cell death and immune cell signaling) and clinical applications (such as immune checkpoint blockade). More generally, students learn to identify relevant primary research literature, critically evaluate experimental data, and reach their own conclusions based on primary data.
This course is one of many Advanced Undergraduate Seminars offered by the Biology Department at MIT. These seminars are tailored for students with an interest in using primary research literature to discuss and learn about current biological research in a highly interactive setting. Many instructors of the Advanced Undergraduate Seminars are postdoctoral scientists with a strong interest in teaching.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The activation of toll-like receptors (TLRs) is critical to detecting potentially harmful microbes, but overactivation can be life-threatening, leading to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. While much research has been dedicated to positive regulators of TLR signaling, such as protein serine/threonine kinases, much less has focused on phosphatases, which counterbalance and limit TLR signaling. Fortunately, a growing number of studies are exploring the roles of these enzymes and how they might be harnessed to prevent excessive immune activation. Two important families of protein phosphatases are phospho-protein phosphatases (PPPs) and metal-dependent protein phosphatases (PPMs). PPPs contain a highly conserved catalytic core domain, which can combine with regulatory subunits to home in on specific enzymatic targets. PPMs, on the other hand, rely on magnesium or manganese ions and do not form multi-subunit complexes..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.