Drosophila immunity research on the move.

Drosophila has been established as useful model for infectious diseases because it allows large numbers of whole animals to be studied and provides powerful genetic tools and conservation with signaling and pathogenesis mechanisms in vertebrates. During the past twenty years, significant progress has been made on the characterization of innate immune responses against various pathogenic organisms in flies (Fig. 1). In this year's Drosophila Research Conference, which was held in San Diego (March 30-April 3) and sponsored by the Genetics Society of America, the immunity and pathogenesis session comprised seven platform presentations and 34 posters that highlighted the latest advances in Drosophila infection and immunity field. The presented work covered a wide range of studies from immune signaling pathways and the molecular basis of humoral and cellular immune mechanisms to the role of endosymbionts in fly immune function and effects of immune priming. Here, we give an overview of the presented work and we explain how these findings will open new avenues in Drosophila immunity research.