NU Splash Biography

The phrase 'fighting off a cold' is commonly used, but the implications of this common immunological description are astronomical. Every day our body is tirelessly fighting to defend itself against foreign invaders looking to destroy our cells and commandeer our body. This class will take you to the front lines of these battles as we follow the lives of three of our body's bravest warriors: the macrophage, the T-cell, and the B-cell. Microbiological methods of foreign microbe fighting will be introduced, as well as a sketch of the ruthless job training (aka selection and differentiation) of the more specialized T and B cells.

We all know it's common practice for a physician to look between the legs of a newborn child and pronounce them a girl or a boy, but how did that differences get there in the first place? And are the physician’s proclamations always correct? This class aims to give a brief introduction to the mechanisms behind human sex determination as it occurs in the fetus and how that impacts a newborn. At the end of the class, we will explore what happens if something in this process goes awry. Note: This class will make use of some explicit images of neonatal genitalia.