University of Birmingham Lecture

On the 25th of November we visited University of Birmingham for an evening lecture presented by Professor Robin May. His lecture was entitled “Pathogens and Disease” which gave us an insight into how our adaptive and innate immune system work to protect us. We learned how only 13% of our bacteria gets passed on when we shake hands and only 17% is shared between our left and right hand. He explained to us how impressive certain parasites are at adapting themselves in order to survive; toxoplasma is the biggest mind manipulating pathogen that lives inside rats. The parasite needs to get from the rat into a cat and it does this by manipulating the rats’ brain so that the rat hangs around the cats faeces. This increases the chances of the rat being eaten by a cat. Professor Robin May led a passionate lecture and involved all the students by throwing questions to the floor. We enjoyed the experience and this gave us an understanding of how university lectures are.

Tirhas Fetwi (13B) & Mariyam Mustafa (13N)