EFHW the first day

They don't muck around at this meeting. Registration is from 5-8 on Monday, then talks from 8-11. Thankfully first night is mostly short talks and you can bring beers into the lecture hall - that's my kinda conference!

This morning has been all immunology. That's not normally my bag, but talented speakers can make the most arcane topics engaging. Steve Kaattari spoke about how antibodies can me made more or less specific through sulfide cross-linking, without changing their actual amino acid sequence. Erin Bromage also gave a great talk about how the immune systems of fish are concentrated in the kidney, and how the immune system can lose its memory of previous antigens in the face of new challenges. The upshot of all the talks is that fish immune systems are different from mammals and in many ways more complex, which may be unexpected given our usual biased view of "mammals do it BEST".

More to come...