[Call of Applications] 12th HKU-Pasteur Immunology Course

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The Centre for Immunology & Infection is pleased to present the new edition of the Immunology Course, co‑organised with the HKU‑Pasteur Research Pole.

Quantitative Immunology:

From population to individual immunity

NOVEMBER 15-20, 2026

Deadline for applications: 30 June 2026

The 12th HKU-Pasteur Immunology Course will explore the frontiers of quantitative immunology to describe the function of the immune system in health and disease at a population and individual level. This year’s course will investigate the causes and consequences of immune variability, discuss the genetic, evolutionary, and environmental foundations of immune diversity, and highlight how functional genomics and systems immunology can be integrated to study immune responses, including through a practical workshop on introductory immunological data integration and exploration with R.

We will address the roles of both innate and adaptive immunity in shaping the risk and spread of seasonal and pandemic infectious diseases, delve into the molecular intricacies of T cell recognition, explore the complexities of mucosal defences, and examine how advances in vaccine immunogenicity are guiding the design of next-generation vaccines.

Practical workshop: Introductory Immunological data integration and exploration with R

Two healthy individuals exposed to the same pathogen can mount strikingly different immune responses, shaped by genetics, age, sex, lifestyle, and a host of factors we are only beginning to understand.

The Milieu Intérieur project, led by researchers at the Institut Pasteur, set out to untangle this variability by deeply phenotyping 1,000 healthy donors and systematically measuring how their immune cells respond to a wide panel of immune stimuli. The result is one of the most comprehensive human immunology datasets ever assembled, and it is the dataset you will be working with throughout these practicals.

Over the course of these introductory hands-on computational workshops, you will explore diverse datasets using R and the R tidyverse. You will wrangle and merge real-world immunological data, learn to build visualisations, and reduce high-dimensional immune profiles with Principal Component Analysis to explore how biological and environmental variables shape immune responses.

By the end, you will have both a practical toolkit and a richer understanding of what healthy immune variations actually looks like in humans.

Prerequisites

A prior coding experience is not required, however, students will get the most out of this workshop if they have:

Basic biology foundations: A working knowledge of the immune system (cell types, key signalling pathways) at an undergraduate level
Comfort with data: Familiarity with tabular data (e.g. spreadsheets), such as understanding rows, columns, and variables
Introductory statistics: Awareness of core concepts like mean, variance, and distributions; prior exposure to the idea of dimensionality reduction is a bonus but not essential
A curious mindset: Willingness to develop your computational skills, to engage with real-world datasets, and troubleshoot alongside instructors and fellow learners.

Participants are expected to bring a laptop with R and RStudio pre-installed. Installation guides will be provided ahead of the workshop.

Open to postgraduate students, MD, DVM, postdoctoral fellows and young scientists from Hong Kong and overseas.
The course (MMPH-6174 / CMED6107) is included in the coursework curriculum for research postgraduate studies of the University of Hong Kong.
Registration fees (HKD 2,500, non refundable) include accommodation (on sharing twin basis for overseas participants) and food (lunch and coffee breaks). A limited number of travel grants will be awarded.
Candidates are invited to download the application form at hkupasteur.hku.hk or scan the QR code.