Question: In your interview, you said that blood cells make a really interesting part of the immune system, why ?

Matt Bilton answered on 10 Nov 2014:

So I said that my research focusses on a specific group of white blood cells, and I think these cells are really interesting! There are lots of types of white blood cells, and they all have different jobs to do in fighting disease causing organisms. The cells I research are called MAIT cells – we know that they respond to bacteria, and that they can kill cells which are infected with bacteria. MAIT cells get switched on by certain types of chemicals that infected cells can make, and also very quickly in response to a very specific molecule that only microorganisms make, but not human cells. MAIT cells are the only ones that get activated by this molecule and I think that’s interesting!