Analysis of immune cell chemotaxis and signal integration

  • Date: 02/07/2008
Speaker(s):

Matthew Onsum (Astra Zeneca)

Location: 

University of British Columbia

Topic: 

In response to an injury, immune cells are recruited to fight off
infecting microbes and clear cellular damage. A number of chemicals,
called chemoattractants, are produced at or near sites of infection and
inflammation and diffuse into the surrounding tissue. Immune cells
sense these chemoattractants and move in the direction where their
concentration is greatest, a process termed chemotaxis, and thus locate
the source of the attractants and associated targets. In this talk I
will present my work using mathematical modeling and experiments to
understand how immune cells detect and interpret multiple
chemoattractants and convert these signals into directed migration. I
will conclude my talk by discussing the application of this work, and
mathematical modeling in general, to the drug discovery process in the
pharmaceutical industry.

Other Information: 

IGTC Math Biology 2008

Sponsor: 

pims