Mote-ivational Science Lecture – Marine Immunology: Connecting Oceans and Human Health

Dr. Cathy Walsh has pursued questions like what a manatee's immune cells reveal about red tide, and what a shark's might someday offer medicine, since joining Mote as a postdoctoral scientist in 1991. She is now senior scientist and manager of the Marine Immunology Program and has spent more than 30 years on the immune systems of sharks, skates, rays, manatees and sea turtles. That work includes how brevetoxins from red tide disturb immune function and whether shark and ray immune cells yield compounds that inhibit tumor cells. More recently she has been growing cell lines from red drum and Pacific white shrimp. Her Mote SEA talk in the Mote-ivational series links that ocean research to human health.