The human body has an amazing ability to recover from and prevent infection. When viruses and bacteria attack, a variety of infection-fighting cells, or immune cells, defend the body. These cells also try to prevent future infections.
How can immune cells do this? Biologists only know part of the answer. Scientists like Joseph W. Brewer, who recently spoke at a at 草莓社区, work to answer questions about how exactly immune cells fight infection.
Brewer, an associate dean of research at the , currently focuses his immunology research on B cells. These cells recognize a specific pathogen and then produce antibodies, proteins that help fight invaders like viruses and bacteria. In becoming equipped to produce specific antibodies, B cells undergo a transformation. It is this transformation that Brewer hopes to understand.
B cells grow much larger as the begin to make large amounts of a specific kind of antibody, and Brewer studies the chemical chain reaction that controls how the endoplasmic reticulum, the part of the cell that makes antibodies, grows larger. In other words, he studies chemicals that allow B cells to change from a small insignificant cell into a much larger cell he calls 鈥渁n antibody factory,鈥� without growing out of control.
Brewer has created a successful career of melding research and education. After earning a PhD from Duke University, he spent eight years at Loyola University鈥檚 Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, and six years at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine.
Every scientist needs four 鈥減uzzle pieces鈥� for a successful career, he said. These contributing factors include mentors, colleagues, a drive for discovery, and direction.
Speaking of his mentors, Brewer discussed several professors and fellow students that encouraged him to learn and gave him the tools he uses today to conduct research. He also referenced the work of colleagues, students, and scientists with whom he worked in laboratory settings.
Passion to acquire new knowledge and fuel the hard work that leads to ground-breaking discoveries is also important, Brewer said. This passion is 鈥渨orth getting up early for, it鈥檚 worth working hard for, it鈥檚 worth staying up late for [to] see something or understand something for the first time perhaps in the history of the world.鈥�
Brewer truly enjoys discovering how B cells work. 鈥淔or me, it鈥檚 just a lot of fun to think about how things work,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut to get funding you have to convince other people that your research has some biomedical relevance.鈥� Fortunately, B cells are very important in medicine. Not only do immune cells fight infection, but they also are responsible for a variety of autoimmune diseases and cancers. Perhaps future doctors can use what he discovers to heal such diseases.
In terms of the final puzzle piece, Brewer says that although he moved from one laboratory to another repeatedly over the course of his career, his direction never changed. 鈥淚 know God wants to show us the path of life. He tells us that all over scripture.鈥�
Brewer sought an appointment at Liberty鈥檚 new osteopathic medical school before it opened to its first class in the fall of 2014, and then moved his family from Mobile, Alabama to Lynchburg, Virginia. 鈥淭o be a part of helping build a Christian medical school, literally from the ground up, would be a once in a lifetime experience,鈥� he says in a Liberty University . 鈥淢y wife and I are so humbled that God opened the door for us to be a part of this incredible blessing.鈥�
Brewer spoke as part of EMU鈥檚 Suter Science Seminar series. Lectures are presented by experts in their field and are free and open to the public. Avrama Kim Blackwell, a professor in the department of molecular neuroscience at George Mason University, will speak March 30 at 4 p.m. in the Suter Science Center about how nerve cells in the striatum store memory, and how that relates to Parkinson鈥檚 Disease.