Seven leading researchers on immune response will discuss the latest developments in the field at the U-M Life Sciences Institute’s annual symposium on May 21.

Titled “Defense Mechanisms in Life: From Bacteria to the Human Body,” the symposium runs from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Forum Hall at Palmer Commons. The event — now in its 14th year — is free and open to the public.

Schedule of Speakers: http://lsi.science/LSIsymposium2015
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This year, the Mary Sue and Kenneth Coleman Life Sciences Lecture will be given by Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D., the David W. Wallace Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Medzhitov helped pioneer research into a group of pathogen-sensing proteins called Toll-like receptors. Since the discovery of their function in the late 1990s, these receptors have transformed our understanding of the body’s response to infection and become one of the hottest areas of biology.

“We didn't realize how much would come out of it eventually, that it would become such a huge area of research," Medzhitov has said of his initial breakthroughs in the field with the late Yale immunologist Charles Janeway, Jr., M.D.

Since then, Medzhitov’s continuing research has shown the key role Toll-like receptors play in infection control, chronic inflammation, and tumor development. He believes they may also play important roles in illnesses like coronary artery disease, Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

The full-day program will also include talks by Luciano Marraffini, Ph.D., Rockefeller University; Phillip D. Zamore, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Medical School; Yasmine Belkaid, Ph.D., National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Gregory F. Sonnenberg, Ph.D., Weill Cornell Medical College; Miriam Merad, M.D., Ph.D., Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Marco Colonna, M.D., Washington University School of Medicine.