Journey to the microscopic world

Measles vaccines are arguably one of the best value-for-money public health interventions introduced in the 20th century. But what makes them better value than other vaccines? And how can we best use these vaccines? As it turns out, the interplay between measles and the adaptive immune system means there is an optimal schedule to give measles vaccines to best protect the whole population. Furthermore, thanks to this interplay measles vaccines could help protect against more than just measles.

When simulating the microscopic motions of particles to understand the properties of real-world materials, molecular physicists need to calculate the interactions in between molecules. One way to circumvent the huge computational cost that comes with this is to simply switch off these interactions in parts of the simulated system. By that, one introduces a systematic error that needs to be compensated. How and why to do that is going to be the subject of my presentation.

Natural killer cells are a subset of immune cells belonging to the innate immune system. Together with other innate cells, they ensure pathogen control until the sophisticated adaptive immune cells (T and B cells) show up and remove the pathogen. Surprisingly, natural killer cells, although being "naturals" at what they do (killing infected and cancerous cells), do have some additional talents that other innate cells lack, such as specific recognition of their arch enemy, the cytomegalovirus.