Immunology with the lab bench still attached.
Immune treats the immune system as a living puzzle, not a textbook diagram. Its conversations move from B cells and aging mice to vaccine fear, tattoo pigment in lymph nodes, placental infection, and the researchers behind the work.
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Immune is immunology presented as a working conversation. It is not flattened into wellness language, and it is not sealed inside specialist shorthand. The show moves between journal-club discussions and Immune Booster interviews, using both formats to show how immune science is argued through evidence. One episode can linger on aged mice, B cells, and what animal lifespan comparisons can and cannot say about human aging. Another can turn tattoos into a discussion of dermal pigment, macrophages, lymphatic drainage, and how immune cells respond to materials placed under the skin. The questions stay concrete. What happens when the newborn immune system meets microbes for the first time? How might early-life microbiome exposure leave long-term effects? Why does the pregnant uterus need immune restraint, and what risks appear when pathogens exploit that balance? The show also has room for lived experience. A vaccine-hesitancy conversation follows fear, measles, SSPE, trust in a pediatrician, and the difficult process of changing one's mind without turning the story into a scolding. The Booster interviews give scientists space to explain where their curiosity came from, including video games, difficult classes, family illness, clinical training, conference encounters, and the first thrill of laboratory work. Panel episodes are more brisk and social. They sound like researchers thinking in real time, correcting details, testing analogies, and laughing at odd phrases such as aged mice while still taking the paper seriously. The technical vocabulary is real: microbiota, lymph nodes, placental infection, NKT cells, HIV vaccine work, sex differences, Listeria, parasites, skin, gut, and lung. Yet the rhythm keeps returning to why the immune system matters in bodies, families, clinics, and public health. Immune is best for listeners who like science with mechanisms, caveats, and personalities intact. It rewards curiosity, patience, and a taste for the unsettled edge of biology.
Made for: For science-curious listeners, biology students, clinicians, researchers, and public-health readers who want immunology explained through papers, experiments, and scientist conversations rather than simplified health advice.
What sets it apart: Immune combines journal-club rigor with personal scientist interviews, keeping both the experimental detail and the human path into research in view.
A podcast about the body's defenders against disease.
A dream virus tattoo meets a paper about ink in lymph nodes; your curiosity gets the better souvenir.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear, research-led look at how early-life microbes may shape immune responses at the body's borders.
Immune frames host-microbe relationships as a question of coexistence: how the body monitors, tolerates, and responds to what enters it. Cindy Leifer's office interview with Dr.
A warm journal-club episode on aging mice, chronic inflammation, and the tricky math of comparing mouse years with human ones.
Immune turns aging and chronic inflammation into a lively journal-club conversation, using mouse months to make longevity feel concrete. The host and three guests unpack why researchers separate 12-month middle-aged mice from older mice often discussed around 24 months, with a…
A vaccine-hesitancy story about fear, trust, and the pediatrician who kept the conversation open.
Immune approaches vaccine hesitancy through fear, trust, and timing, following Ellen Mary Woods as she describes moving from opposition to vaccination to speaking in favor of vaccines.
A focused look at pregnancy's immune balancing act, with Listeria showing where tolerance and vulnerability meet.
Pregnancy creates one of immunology's more revealing tensions: a fetus is not a perfect genetic match, but it is usually tolerated rather than attacked like mismatched transplanted tissue.
Science education between theory and classroom reality.
Cindy Leifer interviews Dr.
Immune episode 102, recorded February 11, 2026, splits between Steph Langell’s Science paper on “Vaccine Enhanced Competition Permits Rational Bacterial Strain Replacement in the Gut” and Breanne Barker’s Science Immunology paper, “B-Cells Drive CD4 T-Cell Immunosenesis.” Steph describes mouse experiments where oral vaccination plus a niche competitor cleared Salmonella Typhimurium more effectively than either approach alone, and the effect depended on matching metabolic niches and escape from vaccine-induced IgA.
Cindy Leifer speaks with Ellen Woods, a firefighter, paramedic, town clerk, and leader of Ithaca is Immunized, about how she moved from being against vaccination to advocating for vaccines.
Gabrielle Rizzuto, an assistant attending physician and assistant member at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, talks with Cindy Leifer from Cornell University about why the immune system tolerates pregnancy.
Immune episode 101, recorded January 13, 2026, opens with Vincent Racaniello, Cindy Leifer, Breein Barker, and Steph Langell before Cindy reviews a January 13, 2026 Immunity paper from Carl June’s lab on IL-9 signaling in CAR T cells.
Rafael Polidoro shares his journey into science, sparked by a video game and a challenging teacher, at the AAI conference.
Tonya Webb discusses her journey into immunology research, focusing on NKT cells and cancer, and the importance of DEI in research.
Michal Tal shares her personal motivation for studying infectious disease, driven by the deaths of her uncle from HIV/AIDS and her cousin from meningococcal meningitis.
Luis Montaner discusses his journey from growing up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to becoming a researcher focused on HIV, starting with his early interest in science and veterinary medicine.
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