On Virology and Immunology—Nicolas Vabret, PhD—Assistant Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology at Mount Sinai
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Professor Nicolas Vabret has had an almost lifelong interest in viruses, and has been studying them since obtaining his PhD in 2011.
He joins the show to discuss a number of interesting topics, including the following:
- How the two main arms of the immune system differ in function, and the nature of immune cells vs non-immune cells
- How an examination of the cytokines produced in response to the COVID-19 virus might shed light on why and whether some patients will develop a very serious form of the illness and some will remain asymptomatic
- What approaches have been and are currently being taken to find a treatment for HIV
What happens as soon as a virus enters the body? What allows the body to recognize non-self cells and to respond accordingly? Some cells have the ability to detect the presence of viruses and bacteria that enter the body, and activate the first step in the innate immune response, which eventually leads to the activation of the second phase of the immune response. Vabret is particularly interested in understanding the early molecular mechanisms that make this possible.
He describes the differences between the innate immune response and adaptive immune response, the role and function of pattern recognition receptors, RNA production, the importance of cytokines in the response to virally-infected hosts—in particular those infected with COVID-19, viral strategies for counteracting immune responses, characteristics of the HIV virus and chimpanzee versus human immune responses to it, current research in the field of immunology, and so much more.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Forget frequently asked questions. |
| 0:02.0 | Common sense, common knowledge, or Google. |
| 0:05.0 | How about advice from a real genius? |
| 0:07.0 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed. |
| 0:11.0 | 5% go above and beyond. They become very good at what they do, but only 0.1% are real Jesus. |
| 0:18.0 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, |
| 0:25.0 | sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses. |
| 0:30.3 | This is the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | That is Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:35.0 | So this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:41.0 | My guest today is Nicholas February. He's an assistant professor of |
| 0:44.8 | medicine, hematology, and medical oncology at Mount Sinai. We're going to talk |
| 0:49.1 | about viruses and viral immunology. Topics to that are in a viruses in particular. |
| 0:56.0 | So Nicholas, thanks for coming. |
| 0:57.6 | Thanks for having me. |
| 0:58.6 | Yeah, what that you interested in the viral action and viruses? |
| 1:02.4 | Oh, actually I got interesting very early. |
| 1:06.6 | I think that when I was in middle school, |
| 1:09.4 | there was a lot of talk about HIV and all I think people trying to reach out to like give us clue how to prevent HIV the spread of HIV and at the time I thought |
| 1:28.1 | that actually viruses were very interesting topic and it was something where if you found a cure or a vaccine, |
| 1:39.1 | you could really make a difference like when I was a kid. mean I was born at the same time but basically |
| 1:45.9 | HIV was identified in 1985 84 and I when I was when I thought about what I wanted to do in my life I thought that if I really wanted to you know make a difference and you need to be to work on what actually killed people and in at that |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Richard Jacobs, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Richard Jacobs and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.