Innately Immune, an Introduction to the Forgotten Sibling

When we think of immunity and all that is asosciated with it, we often think of acquired or adaptive immunity and neglect its lesser known cousin, innate immunity. By writing this blog, I not only wish to spread the awesomeness that is innate immunity, but also to keep myself and readers abreast of current developments in the field. Because of my area of research, I will focus mainly on innate immunity's role in aging.

I am in my second year of my Master's in Biology in Laurent Seroude's Aging lab at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. I started working for Laurent in 2004 during my fourth year project, thinking I'd be there for the year, then be on my merry way after I finished my undergrad. Little did I know, I'd be here for another 2 years. At the moment, we're working on submitting a manuscript to Aging Cell, so things are a little hectic as one might imagine.

In my next post, I'll introduce the innate immune system in more depth, with a focus on the immune system of my model organism, Drosophila Melanogaster.