Designing new generation adjuvants for allergy and parasite vaccines. Allergy vaccines have the potential to provide a permanent cure against many allergic diseases, currently affecting 20-30 per cent of people in developed countries. This project will study how allergy vaccines work and how we can improve their effectiveness and safety.
Real-time imaging of the initiation of adaptive immunity in vivo. Understanding the first few hours of an immune response is fundamental to understanding how the human immune system functions. The immune system mounts our responses to infectious diseases, but can also cause autoimmune disease, allergy, and organ graft rejection. We will study how naive antigen-specific T cells first contact antigen in lymph nodes using 2-photon intravital microscopy. The research has the potential to change the ....Real-time imaging of the initiation of adaptive immunity in vivo. Understanding the first few hours of an immune response is fundamental to understanding how the human immune system functions. The immune system mounts our responses to infectious diseases, but can also cause autoimmune disease, allergy, and organ graft rejection. We will study how naive antigen-specific T cells first contact antigen in lymph nodes using 2-photon intravital microscopy. The research has the potential to change the way we think about the clonal selection of lymphocytes, the fundamental theory underlying our understanding of the immune system.Read moreRead less
Development of microbial bioproducts for the suppression of inflammation. Asthma and inflammatory diseases are serious health problems that result from excessive inflammation. Exposure to bacteria may reduce inflammation. This project will identify the bacterial components that reduce inflammation and develop them into new anti-inflammatory therapies for asthma.
Rhinovirus impairs physiological and immunological lung development and causes exacerbation of allergic airways disease. Rhinovirus (RV) infections account for around 90 per cent of asthma exacerbations, yet the mechanisms behind this are unknown. This project will use mouse models to study the effects of early life RV infection and allergic sensitisation on respiratory and immunological development, with the expectation that early life RV infection disrupts anitgen presenting cell function.