How exactly do insects thousands of miles away in Europe and rodents studied for years in an American laboratory intersect to provide the secrets of how the immune system senses infection and fights back? Bruce A. Beutler, M.D., accomplished pioneering research at UT Southwestern that helped explain some age-old medical puzzles, including: How do we 'know' when we have an infection? What are the receptors that alert us? How do we discriminate self from nonself, and why does the immune system sometimes attack our own cells and tissues? While at the Medical Center, the Nobel Laureate successfully identified the family of Toll-like receptors that enable mammals to sense infection and to launch a powerful inflammatory response. Dr. Beutler's talk will include details of how his research on mice converged with French scientist Dr. Jules A. Hoffman's studies in flies to reveal the fundamental framework by which creatures sense infection