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Our immune system keeps us healthy and safe – it’s a fantastic internal bodyguard that, like any good soldier, is well organised and disciplined. It’s our defence against infectious organisms and germ invaders. But what happens when it goes wrong? Why can some of us scoff peanuts or devour a plate of pasta with no ill effects while others are left feeling bloated, fatigued or, at worst, go into life-threatening anaphylactic shock.

Join immunologist and Headington resident Berne Ferry to find out what the immune system actually is, where it is in our bodies, how it works, why it sometimes gets confused and how this affects us.

Often in science, it is by studying what happens when systems don’t work that we begin to understand how they actually do function. So can our immune cells really get hoodwinked into thinking that parts of the body are dangerous and start to attack them? What would happen if we had no immune system at all? It’s all systems go as Berne explores this fascinating, complex and life-protecting network of organs and cells.

Professor Berne Ferry has been intrigued by the immune system since she was a student and has devoted much of her working life to studying this remarkable system. Berne is Head of the National School of Healthcare Science in Birmingham, before which she was the Lead Scientist in the Oxford Universities Hospital Trust where she set up the NHS Translational Immunology Research Laboratory.

Science on Your Doorstep is our new series of events showcasing the scientists who live and work in the Headington area.

The event is free to attend, but you are invited to make a donation towards a fund to support schools’ travel costs to our new science education centre opening in Headington in 2019. 

For information on our booking terms and conditions visit here.

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