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Africa is a continent with a large burden of both infectious and non-communicable diseases. If we are to move forward as a continent, we need to equip our growing cadre of exceptional young scientists with the skills needed to tackle the diseases endemic to this continent. For this, immunology is among the key disciplines. Africans should be empowered to study and understand the diseases that affect them, and to perform their cutting-edge research in their country of origin. This requires a multifaceted approach, with buy-in from funders, overseas partners and perhaps, most important of all, African governments themselves.

While Derrida's work is often seen as removed from matter, influential arguments have also been made about deconstruction's capacity to capture some foundational logic of matter or life. I offer an example of the way Derrida's work may be read to suggest the latter, even in a case where Derrida may be wrong: based on Thomas Pradeu's Limits of the Self, I suggest that Derrida's arguably erroneous use of autoimmunity anticipated recent developments in immunology. However, instead of simply concluding that Derrida 'anticipates' immunology, I suggest that Pradeu's theory had earlier been prefigured in immunology around the term 'allergy' in agreement with the Derridean use of it in 'Plato's Pharmacy'. Last, I will briefly consider what Derrida calls 'life in general', in order to demonstrate a resistance in his work to be simply proven right within what he understands as the organicist discourse of living matter.

This article explores immunity outside the contours of a human body and biopolitical framework in the plant science material-discursive object of the superweed with its resistance and tolerance to herbicides. Instead of categorically assuming all forms of immunity and immune systems taking place within the abstract category of the (human) body, the article attends to how the figure of the superweed as an analytical and synthesizing focal point comes to populate and be populated by the concept of immunity. At large, the author claims that the material dimension of the superweed can be seen as an extension or supplement to notions of the individual, autonomous, and bounded human body, yet this material dimension can also come to undermine even its own subject position. By unshackling or unlocking the concept of immunity from its human body 'point of origin', new ontological grounds for human and non-human political ecologies can be imagined, with a different form of embodiment, which is neither negative, nor affirmative.

This article explores immunity outside the contours of a human body and biopolitical framework in the plant science material-discursive object of the superweed with its resistance and tolerance to herbicides. Instead of categorically assuming all forms of immunity and immune systems taking place within the abstract category of the (human) body, the article attends to how the figure of the superweed as an analytical and synthesizing focal point comes to populate and be populated by the concept of immunity. At large, the author claims that the material dimension of the superweed can be seen as an extension or supplement to notions of the individual, autonomous, and bounded human body, yet this material dimension can also come to undermine even its own subject position. By unshackling or unlocking the concept of immunity from its human body 'point of origin', new ontological grounds for human and non-human political ecologies can be imagined, with a different form of embodiment, which is neither negative, nor affirmative.

This article explores immunity outside the contours of a human body and biopolitical framework in the plant science material-discursive object of the superweed with its resistance and tolerance to herbicides. Instead of categorically assuming all forms of immunity and immune systems taking place within the abstract category of the (human) body, the article attends to how the figure of the superweed as an analytical and synthesizing focal point comes to populate and be populated by the concept of immunity. At large, the author claims that the material dimension of the superweed can be seen as an extension or supplement to notions of the individual, autonomous, and bounded human body, yet this material dimension can also come to undermine even its own subject position. By unshackling or unlocking the concept of immunity from its human body 'point of origin', new ontological grounds for human and non-human political ecologies can be imagined, with a different form of embodiment, which is neither negative, nor affirmative.

The field of immunology is rapidly progressing toward a systems-level understanding of immunity to tackle complex infectious diseases, autoimmune conditions, cancer, and beyond. In the last couple of decades, advancements in data acquisition techniques have presented opportunities to explore untapped areas of immunological research. Broad initiatives are launched to disseminate the datasets siloed in the global, federated, or private repositories, facilitating interoperability across various research domains. Concurrently, the application of computational methods, such as network analysis, meta-analysis, and machine learning have propelled the field forward by providing insight into salient features that influence the immunological response, which was otherwise left unexplored. Here, we review the opportunities and challenges in democratizing datasets, repositories, and community-wide knowledge sharing tools. We present use cases for repurposing open-access immunology datasets with advanced machine learning applications and more.

Contact dermatitis can be induced by a variety of small antigens. After binding of such antigens to a skin protein, they form a hapten-protein complex which can be incorporated into Langerhans cells or which can develop intracellularly. These complexes or their fragments can be presented via major histocompatibility complex (MHC) II by professional antigen-presenting cells or via MHC I by any cell present in the skin. The following activation of cytotoxic CD8+ T cells induces death of the presenting cell, including Langerhans cells or keratinocytes, which leads to an enormous release of immunoactive and chemoattractant cytokines and chemokines, initiating a strong inflammation.