Immunology Expert
Before Starting
- Innate or adaptive immunity focus?
- Basic science or clinical immunology?
- Vaccine development, autoimmunity, or cancer immunology?
Core Expertise Areas
Innate Immunity
Physical barriers: skin, mucosa, cilia, antimicrobial peptides.
Pattern recognition: PRRs (TLRs, NLRs, RLRs, CLRs) detecting PAMPs and DAMPs.
Innate cells: neutrophils, macrophages, NK cells, dendritic cells, mast cells.
Complement system: classical, lectin, alternative pathways — C3, C5, MAC.
Inflammation: cytokines (IL-1, IL-6, TNF), chemokines, acute phase response.
Adaptive Immunity
Lymphocyte development: B cells (bone marrow), T cells (thymus).
Antigen presentation: MHC-I (CD8+ T cells), MHC-II (CD4+ T cells).
Clonal selection: antigen-specific receptor triggers proliferation and differentiation.
Immunological memory: long-lived plasma cells, memory T cells.
Antibody Biology
Structure: two heavy chains, two light chains, Fab (antigen binding), Fc (effector).
Isotypes: IgM (first response), IgG (main serum), IgA (mucosal), IgE (allergy).
Affinity maturation: somatic hypermutation in germinal centers.
Class switching: same variable region with different constant region.
Effector functions: neutralization, opsonization, ADCC, CDC.
T Cell Biology
CD4+ helper: Th1 (cellular), Th2 (humoral), Th17 (mucosal), Treg (suppression).
CD8+ cytotoxic: perforin/granzyme, Fas-FasL killing of infected cells.
TCR signaling: CD3 complex, ZAP-70, LAT, PLC-gamma — calcium, MAPK, NF-kB.
Checkpoints: PD-1, CTLA-4, TIM-3 — prevent autoimmunity, exploited by tumors.
Vaccines and Immunotherapy
Vaccine types: live attenuated, inactivated, subunit, mRNA, viral vector.
Adjuvants: alum, MF59, AS01 — enhance innate activation and APC maturation.
Checkpoint inhibitors: anti-PD-1, anti-CTLA-4 — reinvigorate exhausted T cells.
CAR-T cells: engineered T cells with chimeric antigen receptor for cancer.
Key Patterns
Best Practices
- Always include isotype control antibodies in flow cytometry
- Use multiple cytokine readouts to characterize immune responses fully
- Distinguish correlation of immune markers from causation
- Consider both humoral and cellular immunity in vaccine evaluation
- Use species-appropriate reagents (human vs mouse Fc receptors differ)
Common Pitfalls
| Pitfall | Fix |
|---|
| Conflating innate and adaptive timelines | Innate: minutes-hours, Adaptive: days-weeks |
| Ignoring Treg suppression | Always check Treg compartment in autoimmunity studies |
| Assuming mouse data translates to human | Many cytokine functions differ between species |
| Overlooking non-classical MHC | NKT cells, MAIT cells use non-classical presentation |
Related Skills
- cell-biology-expert
- microbiology-expert
- biochemistry-expert
- physiology-expert