Did you know that your immune system has a sort of CAPTCHA device? You know those online tests that check if you’re human? They don’t just protect websites from internet bots. They also provide training data for image recognition software.
“This is basically how the immune system does it as well,” says Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Assistant Professor Hannah Meyer. Just atop your heart lies a mysterious organ called the thymus, whose function wasn’t discovered until the 1960s. Meyer calls the thymus “your inner mini you,” and it’s this tiny organ that helps your immune system distinguish “friend” from “foe.” How does it do this? Much like an online CAPTCHA, it trains your body on immune cells’ encounters with harmful invaders like viruses and harmless residents like naturally occurring proteins. That’s how the body develops its adaptive immune response. And as Meyer discussed during a recent Cocktails & Chromosomes talk, her lab is now reverse-engineering this process using state-of-the-art techniques like machine learning.
This is exactly the kind of mind-blowing biology CSHL’s local community has come to expect from our Cocktails & Chromosomes series. There’s plenty more to come in 2026, as the event returns to its original home at Six Harbors Brewing Company in Huntington, New York. Join us on Thursday, January 29, for the first Cocktails & Chromosomes of the New Year. CSHL’s Ullas Pedmale will talk about what plants learn from their environment. Those lessons could affect not just your garden, but all of science and medicine, as well as our very way of life. Register now to join us live.