BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Cell Migration &\; Gradient Sensing: Lessons from Zebrafish Neu trophils - Dr Milka Sarris\, University of Cambridge\, Department of Physi ology\, Development &\; Neuroscience / Cambridge Immunology Network DTSTART:20141106T160000Z DTEND:20141106T170000Z UID:TALK55458@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:16026 DESCRIPTION:Our group is interested in how individual cells navigate in co mplex tissue environments. We focus on immune cells (neutrophils) and ask how they search tissues and find their way to sites of infection or tissue damage. We approach this through live imaging of immune cells in zebrafis h combined with quantitative and genetic approaches. We are also developin g new optogenetic tools to interrogate the spatiotemporal dynamics of neut rophil gradient sensing in vivo.\n\n\n====\n\n**More about the speaker**\n \nhttp://www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/staff/sarris/index.shtml\n\nDr Milka Sarris joi ned the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology first as a summer student and then as a PhD student of Alex Betz in 2003. During this time\, she became interested in how cells of the immune system communicate in order to ensur e appropriate responses to infection and discovered mechanisms that help l ymphocytes establish long-lived functional contacts.\n\nShe then became pr eoccupied by how immune cells move and find their way within tissues. Leuk ocyte behaviour has traditionally been interrogated in vitro and remarkabl y little is still known about how these cells search tissues and read guid ance cues in situ.\n\nMotivated to explore new approaches to this problem\ , she moved to the Institut Pasteur in Paris in 2009 to join the group of Philippe Herbomel\, who had stablished the zebrafish as a model for live i maging studies of the immune system. By exploiting the transparency and ge netic tractability of zebrafish\, she described mechanisms through which c hemokines (the most prominent guidance cues in vertebrates) form functiona l gradients and instruct leukocyte migration to infection sites.\n\nIn Apr il 2014 she was awarded an MRC Career Development Award to initiate her gr oup in the University of Cambridge\, at the Department of Physiology\, Dev elopment and Neuroscience\, which she officially joined in August 2014. LOCATION:Hodgkin Huxley Seminar Room\, Physiology Building\, Downing Site END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR