Unraveling the Mystery of Immunity | Dr. James Crowe, Jr. | TEDxNashville

World pandemics of infection are occurring at an ever increasing pace - bird flu, SARS, MERS, chikungunya, Ebola, Zika viruses. Which is the bigger foe, the world of microbial pathogens or the human immune system? Is the system of the human body capable of recognizing and defending against this constant onslaught of infectious threats?

Dr. Crowe is Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University, and the Ann Scott Carell Chair and Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center. His laboratory studies the molecular, genetic and structural basis of human immune responses to virus infection or vaccination. His group is working on new methods in computational immunology for rational design of vaccines and antibodies.For instance, Crowe and his team are spearheading the Human Immunome Project, an ambitious effort to identify the sequence of all transcripts for adaptive immune receptors on the planet.He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and has been the recipient of a number of major investigator awards for research.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx