Theo van den Broek

With great interest I’ve read the recent publication in Immunity that alters our current understanding of when class switch recombination (CSR) occurs. It was always believed that CSR and Somatic Hyper Mutation (SHM) occurred within the germinal center, but Roco et al. show that CSR actually occurs prior to germinal center formation and extrafollicular plasmablast induction. Signs of CSR can be detected as early as 1.5 days following immunization. This result explains why many IgM memory B cells can be found, as if CSR occured in the germinal center they would likely be skewed towards the same isotype. Overall, this new insight alters our current dogma of when we believe CSR occurs and opens up a specific window of when we could specifically intervene with CSR.

I briefly highlighted this new finding in a breaking news item on Immunopaedia, promoting immunology education worldwide.

Our article “INNO-LiPA DNA line probe assay misidentification of M. smegmatis as Mycobacterium fortuitum complex” is now online in the ‘Article in Press‘ section of DMID.

The full program can be found here

The website is still under construction, http://www.journaloflifesciences.org/, but will soon be fully operational.

Feel free to spread the message among your post-docs and hang or hand-out our Flyer at your institute.

Peer reviewer for the journal Medicine® responsible for reviewing original (clinical ) immunology focused articles.

With great interest I’ve read the recent publication in Nature describing HIV remission following CCR5Δ32/32 allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), for the 2nd time. In this case a less toxic treatment regime was used in contrast to the 1st patient (‘Berlin patient’) ~10 years ago, who almost died from the treatment. It further shows that the ‘Berlin patient’ was not an anomaly and HIV cure can be achieved after allo-HSCT. A step closer to finding a cure for HIV.

I briefly highlighted this new finding in a breaking news item on Immunopaedia, promoting immunology education worldwide.

Online course (4-month) about the scope, analysis, and challenges of omics research, by Harvard Catalyst.

“Introduction to Omics Research is an online course designed to give participants an introduction to the principles, analytical methods, and challenges of omics research. The scope of the omics field will be explored, which includes genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. This course will touch upon the need for a foundational understanding of managing large omics datasets as these skills have become imperative for researchers in biology and medicine.”

You can find the full program of the Keystone conference on ‘B Cell-T Cell Interactions’ here

I started as an ambassador of Immunopaedia, promoting immunology education. This is a non-profit educational organization which aims to promote cutting edge knowledge and research in basic and clinical immunology worldwide.  They create and host online courses in partnership with the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS) and other bodies. These courses educate and support participants and students before and after Immunology conferences and courses world-wide.
My Ambassador profile.

Starting as a member of the Harvard Medical Postdoc Association, committee of Professional development. Working towards improving and increasing the capabilities of postdocs through providing access to education and training opportunities, by organizing workshops focused on developing skills in writing grants, resumes and job applications, among others.