Abstract: We have given names to nearly all the different proteins molecules that mediate communication between human cells. Now, the audacious goal of contemporary cell biology is to understand how the billion proteins in an average cell allow them to move, multiply, create a brain or defend us against viruses and bacteria. Thus, imaging where and when proteins interact with each other has a major role to play at this frontier. In this lecture, I will discuss how recent images of just a few types of proteins has already led to important new concepts in how immune cells communicate with each other and how they recognize signs of disease.

Biography: Daniel Davis obtained a BSc. in Physics from the University of Manchester in 1992 and a PhD. in Physics in 1995 in David Birch’s laboratory at Strathclyde University, Glasgow. Then, as an Irvington Institute Fellow, he studied immunology with Jack Strominger at Harvard University. In December 1999 he returned to the UK to establish his own research group at Imperial College London and he earned a Professorship in 2005. His principal scientific achievements are the first description of the Natural Killer (NK) cell immune synapse, which was also the first description of any immune synapse between living cells, the first observation of proteins exchanging between cells across NK cell immune synapses and most recently, the first studies on how membrane nanotubes can have an important role in immune cell biology.

Chair: Professor Maggie Dallman, Professor of Immunology, Deputy Principal, Faculty of Natural Sciences

Vote of Thanks: Professor David Birch, Head, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde

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