Bioengineering Seminar

Co-hosted by Georgia Tech's Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

Gabriel D. Victora
Laurie and Peter Grauer Professor
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Rockefeller University

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ABSTRACT
The average affinity of specific antibodies increases dramatically over the course of an immune response. This increase is the result of a Darwinian process in which B lymphocytes undergo iterative cycles of random hypermutation of their immunoglobulin genes, followed by selective proliferation of clones bearing affinity-enhancing mutations. This evolutionary process takes place in highly dynamic microanatomical structures known as germinal centers, which arise within secondary lymphoid organs upon infection or immunization. Our work combines intravital multiphoton microscopy with mouse genetics to study how the dynamics of B and T lymphocytes within germinal centers shapes the evolution of the high-affinity antibodies that are crucial to protection from infectious disease.

RESEARCH
The Victora lab works mostly on B lymphocytes, the cells that produce the antibodies that protect us against infectious diseases. By combining traditional immunology, mouse genetics, and multiphoton microscopy, they investigate the regulation of B lymphocyte activation and differentiation and the process of antibody affinity maturation. They also do a bit of work on cell-cell interactions in general on the side.

View Full 2025-2026 Bioengineering Seminar Series Schedule