911勛圖

Synopsis

The immune system is a remarkable example of self-organized information processing in living matter. During infections, immune cells sense invading microbes through dynamic biochemical signal processing, amplify those signals through cell-cell communication, and assemble into complex spatial structures that enable collective antimicrobial tactics. A quantitative understanding of this sequence, from single-cell processing to organism-scale infection outcomes, has the potential to reveal new physics of how collective cellular behaviors enable robust biological functions. However, in conventional studies of immune responses using mice or humans, these rich cellular dynamics are inaccessible, hidden within opaque tissues. To address this gap, I established live imaging of immune responses in fruit fly larvae. Fly larvae are optically transparent, amenable to precise genetic manipulation, and possess an innate immune system that is based on the same core signaling pathways found in humans but is far more streamlined. As such, it functions as the ���hydrogen atom��� of immunology���a system that is quantitatively tractable but also provides useful insights. In this talk, I will discuss how we used light sheet fluorescence microscopy to follow immune response dynamics organism-wide at single-cell resolution and how this imaging-based approach led to the discovery of spatial structure within a key immunological tissue.