Teaching

Evolutionary ecology combines aspects of various biological disciplines that where earlier distinct, such as evolutionary biology, immunology and parasitology. Evolutionary thinking has recently started to infiltrate into immunological research, establishing a new branch of investigation termed evolutionary and ecological immunology. This change in perspectives is potentially valuable both for basic research and practical applications in biomedicine as it may help to explain differences between individuals in their immune function. Understanding the circumstances of emergence and evolution of the immune system is also important from the point of view of zoological research of animal evolution and ecological investigation of relationships between organisms. This series of lectures devoted to evolutionary and ecological immunology links information on the immune system function (variability and redundancy of mechanisms, molecular polymorphism, constrains and failures of immunity) with the knowledge of principles and mechanisms of host-parasite/pathogen evolution. Where possible examples from biomedicine are provided and usage of the evolutionary ecology in classical immunology is mentioned. The concept of lectures allows students to gain basics of evolutionary biology even without previous experience in this discipline.