On May 30, 2016, with the invitation of Prof. Junmin Quan, Prof. Zhengfan Jiang visited our school and gave a wonderful lecture titled “The research of innate immune and relative cell signal transduction”, teachers and students of our school actively participated in the academic discussions and exchanged ideas.

The innate immune system, also known as the nonspecific immune system or in-born immunity system, is an important subsystem of the overall immune system that comprises the cells and mechanisms that defend the host from infection by other organisms. The cells of the innate system recognize and respond to pathogens in a generic way, but, unlike the adaptive immune system, the system does not confer long-lasting or protective immunity to the host. Based on this background, Prof. Zhengfan Jiang introduced his lecture from two aspects. The first section, he illustrated “Caspase Cuts cGAS to control Innate Immunity during Inflammasome /Apoptosis Activation”. This work had a great significance for us to understand the caspase-balanced innate immunity. The second section was “Substance A(SA) Activates cGAS to Mount an Anti-Viral State and inhibit HIV Infection”. The found had great potential study. For example, it may be an excellent drug candidate for anti-tumor, anti-viral, especially anti-HIV therapies.

At the end of the report, Prof. Zhengfan Jiang and our faculty and students on the content of the report exchanged their discussion. (Written by Xin Zeng)
 
Prof. Zhengfan Jiang is a Cheung Kong Scholar Professor at the School of Life Sciences, Peking University. He received his Ph. D. degree from Peking University, and carried out his postdoctoral work at Drs. George Stark &Xiaoxia Li's lab in Lerner Research Institute, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation during 1999 to 2003, and at Dr. Bruce Beutler's lab in The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, from 2003 to 2006. Jiang’s work focuses on innate immunity and the related cell signaling.