The department of Life Sciences, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) organized a guest lecture by DR. Helen Collins, Vice Dean, Faculty of Life Science and Medicine, King’s College, London, on November 10 2016 at 9 am in Campus View. Students of third year BCZ, BCB and CBZ attended the talk.

The topic was “Immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis”. She talked about the role of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the cause of the disease. Antibiotic medications are usually not completed by most patients for the stipulated course of time as the patients start feeling better within a few days of medication. This in turn leads to multi-drug resistance further increasing the potency of the pathogens to cause the disease. M. Tb is one such micro-organism which has gradually become multi drug resistance thereby making it difficult to treat due to which Tuberculosis stands as a major global threat. Also Dr Collins went on to talk about how it is due to  the variation in  genetic makeup of individuals  that some people are easily affected by TB even with very less exposure to the pathogen  while other individuals with very frequent exposure to the pathogen are hardly affected. Even though the extent of exposure may be one of the risk factors responsible for causing TB, The strength of the immune system is also another factor that contributes to the patient getting affected. Dr Collins further gave us an insight into the role of macrophages , neutrophils and T cells with the help of different experiments which were used to study the role of T cells and especially neutrophils in the treatment of TB.

She gave a short introduction to Kings college, London, their campuses and their different UG and PG programmes. Finally the talk ended with an interactive session during which queries were answered after which Dr Collins invited the students to attend an exclusive showcase and seminar about King’s college in Hotel Oberoi on Nov 12, 2016.