Activity: Other activity types › Public engagement and outreach - festival/exhibition
Description
Throughout human evolution, parasitic worms have been very common and largely benign infections: they evolved to live inside us and prevent strong immune responses against them. In the last few hundred years, improved sanitation has meant that we rarely get infected with these parasites. As a result, our immune system does not receive suppressive signals from these friendly worms, and is prone to hyperactivity. A hyperactive immune system then causes allergic diseases such as asthma. Our research investigates how we can learn from these clever parasites, and how we could develop new treatments for allergic diseases from them.
Period
21 May 2025
Event title
Pint of Science Festival: Small but Mighty: The Microbes Among Us