[IHD Membership Roster] [IHD Meeting Rosters]

The Immunity and Host Defense [IHD] study section covers the interface between the immune response and the microbial milieu.  As such it reviews applications concerned with the innate and adaptive immune responses to a wide variety of pathogens and commensals, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites.  Emphasis is on the innate, systemic and mucosal immune responses to these microbial organisms, in animal models and humans. Specific areas covered by IHD include:
 

• host-microbe interactions: innate and acquired host immune responses to specific pathogenic organisms including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites; host responses to commensal microbes; influence of host factors, including genetic predisposition or resistance to infection.
• innate immunity to microorganisms: cells, receptors, cytokines, chemokines, and soluble mediators that provide early protection from injury due to pathogens and their products or responses to commensal organisms. Innate immune cells including but not limited to NK cells, phagocytes, gamma/delta and NK T cells, B-1 cells, dendritic cells, and mast cells. Receptors including but not limited to molecules expressed by these cells engaged in innate immunity, including chemokine and other G-protein coupled receptors, Toll-like receptors, NK cell activation and inhibitory receptors, phagocytic receptors, pattern recognition receptors, Fc receptors, adhesion receptors, co-stimulatory molecules, and cytokine receptors.
• mucosal immunity: host immune responses in mucosal sites to specific pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites and regulation by commensal microbes. Induction and modulation of mucosal immune responses. Comparison of mucosal immunity versus systemic immunity, differentiation of immune responses in the mucosa and peripheral lymphoid tissues, and immune cell migration to mucosal sites including inductive and effector sites.
• host defense: innate and acquired immune responses that protect the host from deleterious effects of pathogens, including basic mechanisms of immune responses to limit pathogen invasion and toxicity, and development of animal models of potential bioterrorism agents.
• immune response to vaccines and gene therapy agents: immune responses to vaccines, both vector and cell based vaccines and immune responses that limit the treatment through gene transfer, including response to gene therapy vectors and gene products.

Study sections with the most closely related areas of science listed in rank order are:

Innate Immunity And Inflammation [III] 
Vaccines Against Microbial Diseases [VMD] 
Hypersensitivity, Autoimmune, and Immune-mediated Diseases [HAI] 
Clinical Research and Field Studies of Infectious Diseases [CRFS] 
Lung Cellular, Molecular, And Immunobiology [LCMI]