S01E06: Ninan Abraham on how the immune system protects us from pathogens like SARS-CoV-2

Our guest for this episode is Ninan Abraham, professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology and the Department of Zoology at UBC. Abraham is also a member of the Infection, Inflammation and Immunity Research Group, and an expert on immunity to respiratory tract pathogens such as Influenza A, and more recently, COVID-19.

In this episode, Kalina Christoff and Ninan Abraham discuss how it’s possible for the same pathogen, such as SARS-CoV-2, to produce such vastly different responses in different individuals.

This episode was produced remotely, with Abraham and Christoff recording from their respective homes.

Stay tuned for our next episode, featuring a conversation with Lisa Sundstrom (UBC Political Science) on what Western societies can learn from Russia and Eastern Europe about protecting civil liberties and coping with hardship in times of crisis.

Listen to episode six below, and make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

The Peter Wall Institute is proud to present the Ways of Knowing podcast. Join Kalina Christoff, a Professor of Psychology at UBC and Interim Director of the Peter Wall Institute, as she explores how scholars and artists think about their areas of expertise and beyond. You can find all of our episodes here.  

Links to content mentioned in this episode:

Thevarajan, I., Nguyen, T.H.O., Koutsakos, M. et al. Breadth of concomitant immune responses prior to patient recovery: a case report of non-severe COVID-19. Nat Med (2020)

Huang, C., Wang, Y., Li, X. et al. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The Lancet (2020)