Sir Andrew McMichael is a Professor of Immunology at the University of Oxford and previously Director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences and has been a leader in human immunology for decades, notably  focusing on responses to viral infections including influenza and HIV.

We discuss:

• Prof McMichael's career in immunology spanning from his work in the 1980s on HLA restriction and recognition of viral peptides to the study of a HLA-E, an atypical MHC-Ib molecule that is involved in immunosurveillance 
• How HLA-E is involved in detection of the "missing self" by Natural Killer (NK) cells 
• The discovery of a class of CD8+ T cells recognising HLA-E complexes and their role in protection against SIV infection 
• The opportunities and unanswered questions in  HLA-E immunobiology
• Advice to scientists