I've been on a tear lately with science stories and this one caught my eye. How do our bodies fight disease? One way appears to be by tasting disease and parasites.
I talked to a group of three young researchers in Pennsylvania who've discovered taste bud cells all over the body. These cells were previously known to exist in the gut but Andrew Vaughn was initially shocked to find them in the lungs too. Vaughn is one of the researchers you will hear in the interview. He worked with two colleagues: De'Broski Herbert and Noam Cohen. The three are trying to understand how these cells help the body sense disease/parasites and alert the immune system. Below is my interview on their discovery and continued work on this exciting and interesting aspect immunology.