Biology

Dr. Satyajit Rath
National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi

The immune system shows enormous variation, both between individual cells and between individual organisms. Within organisms, quantitative variation in cellular activation in the immune system can have diverse consequences, resulting in heterogeneity in activation and survival as well as in effector programming and function of cells. Between organisms, diversity in immune responses can provide species-survival advantages. I will use our data from a couple of different areas to explain our interest in the sources and consequences of immune heterogeneity. While examining relationships between lymphocyte heterogeneity and functionality, we have found that heterogeneity in responding T cell populations is likely to be a determinant of the familiar dose-response relationships in T cell responses. I will connect some of the resultant mouse data-based ideas of heterogeneity to some field evidence in order to illustrate how measurement of heterogeneity can lead to interesting insights into both developmental and functional inter individual variations in the human immune system.