Did you know that your immune system has a sort of CAPTCHA device? You know those online tests that check if you鈥檙e human? They don鈥檛 just protect websites from internet bots. They also provide training data for image recognition software.
鈥淭his is basically how the immune system does it as well,鈥� says 黑料吃瓜资源 (CSHL) Assistant Professor Hannah Meyer. Just atop your heart lies a mysterious organ called the thymus, whose function wasn鈥檛 discovered until the 1960s. Meyer calls the thymus 鈥測our inner mini you,鈥� and it鈥檚 this tiny organ that helps your immune system distinguish 鈥渇riend鈥� from 鈥渇oe.鈥� How does it do this? Much like an online CAPTCHA, it trains your body on immune cells鈥� encounters with harmful invaders like viruses and harmless residents like naturally occurring proteins. That鈥檚 how the body develops its adaptive immune response. And as Meyer discussed during a recent Cocktails & Chromosomes talk, her lab is now reverse-engineering this process using state-of-the-art techniques like machine learning.
This is exactly the kind of mind-blowing biology CSHL鈥檚 local community has come to expect from our Cocktails & Chromosomes series. There鈥檚 plenty more to come in 2026, as the event returns to its original home at Six Harbors Brewing Company in Huntington, New York. Join us on Thursday, January 29, for the first Cocktails & Chromosomes of the New Year. CSHL鈥檚 Ullas Pedmale will talk about what plants learn from their environment. Those lessons could affect not just your garden, but all of science and medicine, as well as our very way of life. to join us live.