Mark Davis: Tetramers and human immunology
Professor Mark Davis talks about his research on T cell receptors and his early tetramer collaboration with Oxford. These tetramers did overcome the very low affinity but high specificity of T cell receptors. Professor Davis stresses the importance of working not only on laboratory models, but on human samples.
Professor Davis also emphasises the need of a repository of samples, particularly when studying vaccines. Memory T cells are acquired during a lifetime even when individuals are not in contact with a certain infection, by cross reactivity to other antigens. This partially explains why young children are more vulnerable to infectious diseases.