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Immunology

Research Assistant/Research Associate in Immunology job with … – Times Higher Education

Job description

We are looking for a dynamic and motivated Research Assistant/Research Associate to join a team working on the links between the Immune System, Clonal Haematopoiesis and Ageing.

ARCH is an age-related phenomenon where individuals acquire mutations in their bone marrow and blood cells. In most cases, these mutations are not associated with clinically apparent haematological disease, but their presence correlates with an increased risk of developing chronic inflammatory diseases and blood cancers such as Myeloid Dysplastic Syndrome and Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

The post-holder will be based in the Immunohaematology-oncology Lab led by Dr. Giorgio Napolitani, and will apply Mass Cytometry and state-of-the-art immunological techniques to define the immune landscape in the Bone Marrow and the Peripheral Blood of individuals with or without ARCH. The aim of this project will to characterize abnormalities in immune cell populations which might underlie the increased risk of developing chronic inflammatory diseases and blood cancers in individual with ARCH. The successful applicant will be embedded in a team including immunologists, haematologists and bioinformaticians working at the interface between basic and translational immune-haematology.

The applicant will be expected to be a keen Immunologist with hands-on experience in immunological techniques (i.e. Flow Cytometry, isolation and culture of immune cells from patients samples) and will receive training in Mass Cytometry and single-cell RNA sequencing.

Both postgraduate (pre-doctoral) and post-doctoral candidates are welcome to apply. A successful postdoctoral candidate can expect to be paid at Grade 6.

Dr Napolitani is committed to helping promising researchers in developing their careers, and potential applicants are encouraged to contact him (giorgio.napolitani@kcl.ac.uk).

This post will be offered on a fixed-term contract initially until 30th June 2024, with the possibility of extension until 30th June 2025.

Relevant publications:

This post will be offered on an a fixed-term contract until 30th June 2024 with possibility of extension.

This is a full-time post 100% full time equivalent

Key responsibilities

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Skills, knowledge, and experience

Research Assistant (Grade 5)

Essential criteria

1.BSc/MSc in relevant biomedical or biological sciences.

2. At least 3 years of experience in immunology-focussed laboratory research

3. Experience in analysis of immune cells isolated from patients samples (e.g. flow cytometry, RNA-sequencing, imaging)

4. Ability to use initiative to efficiently plan, optimise and progress project and communicate findings

5. Extensive IT skills (including experience with flow cytometry analysis software and general data analysis software such as GraphPad Prism or Excel)

6. Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and ability to work with colleagues at all levels

7. Good written and spoken English

8. A willingness to contribute to the work of others by offering practical and intellectual help

Desirable criteria

1. Experience in multidimensional analysisof cytometry data

2. Experience in bioinformatics, good programming skills, including in R and python.

Research Associate (Grade 6)

Essential Criteria

1. PhD/Dphil (for Grade 6) in relevant biomedical or biological sciences.

2. At least 3 years of experience in immunology-focussed laboratory research

3. Experience in analysis of immune cells isolated from patients samples (e.g. flow cytometry, RNA-sequencing, imaging)

4. Ability to use initiative to efficiently plan, optimise and progress project and communicate findings

5. Extensive IT skills (including experience with flow cytometry analysis software and general data analysis software such as GraphPad Prism or Excel)

6. Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and ability to work with colleagues at all levels

7. Good written and spoken English

8. A willingness to contribute to the work of others by offering practical and intellectual help

Desirable criteria

1. Experience in multidimensional analysisof cytometry data

2. Experience in bioinformatics, good programming skills, including in R and python.

Further information

We would like the successful candidate to start as soon as possible after the job offer (latest 1/8/2023).

Planned interview dates: early June.

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Research Assistant/Research Associate in Immunology job with ... - Times Higher Education

Immunology

Pioneering learning resource helps academic win top teaching award – Swansea University

Academic Tom Wilkinson has been honoured for helping to develop inspirational ways of teaching immunology to students during Covid.

Besides introducing immunology across all years and programmes, he was also part of the team which created a special set of resources for remote learning. This led to him being recognised at the British Society for Immunology (BSI) inaugural awards and named one of the two joint winners of the Teaching Excellence Award.

Dr Wilkinson, from Swansea University Medical School, played a key role in the development of the Wales Immunology Teaching Toolkit, a suite of resources designed to ensure students could learn the key immunology techniques and experimental procedures even when they were unable to be in the lab due to Covid.

One of these resources, a virtual flow cytometer, was so successful that it became a permanent feature of the course and is now available to be adopted across the UK and Ireland at other institutions.

Dr Wilkinson, who also leads the Universitys microbiology and infectious disease group, described his award as a great honour.

He said: I am really glad that the BSI recognised the importance of developing new simulation materials for improved immunology teaching at undergraduate level.

As with any award I am part of a team and would like to acknowledge the support of Dr Nigel Francis, from Cardiff University, and our gifted learning technologist Dave Ruckley at Swansea. Going forward we hope to further refine our teaching simulations whichwe published last year.

This would involve the use of the simulations at other universities in the UK, so that we can further learn about their role in undergraduate teaching.

While I enjoy the live interaction in lectures and practicals with the students, the pandemic meant we needed to find other ways to engage and encourage learning and these laboratory research-inspired simulations and resources will be useful aids to support students before they enter wet labs for the first time.

The BSI Immunology Awards celebrated the remarkable achievements of individuals and teams currently shaping the future of immunology with eleven winners revealed at a special ceremony.

BSI Chief Executive Doug Brown said: We are thrilled to recognise the achievements of these extraordinary individuals. Each of them dedicates their time and expertise to shaping the future of immunology, in many cases away from the limelight. Their efforts will ensure a brighter future for our field.

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Pioneering learning resource helps academic win top teaching award - Swansea University

Immunology

12 Months of Treatment with EPIT Superior to Placebo in … – UNC Health and UNC School of Medicine

The study, called EPITOPE, led by senior author A. Wesley Burks, MD, CEO of UNC Health and dean of the UNC School of Medicine, and contributing author Edwin Kim, MD, MS, associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at the UNC School of Medicine, shows superior results in desensitizing children to peanuts. Results were recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Peanut allergy affects approximately two percent of children in the United States, Canada, and other westernized countries, with a rapidly rising prevalence over the past 20 years. Currently there are no FDA approved treatment options for peanut-allergic children under the age of 4 years, but further research into the safety, efficacy, and tolerability of epicutaneous immunotherapy (EPIT) could play a significant role in novel options for immunotherapy. The EPITOPE trial, led by senior author A. Wesley Burks, MD, CEO of UNC Health and dean of the UNC School of Medicine, evaluating the safety profile of Viaskin, a novel form of EPIT, among peanut-allergic toddlers shows that after 12 months of treatment in children aged 1-3 years, the treatment was found to be statistically superior to placebo in desensitizing participants to peanuts, increasing the peanut dose triggering allergic symptoms. Edwin Kim, MD, MS, associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at the UNC School of Medicine is also a contributing author to the paper.

These are very encouraging results and move us closer to a treatment option for this increasingly prevalent and serious allergic condition, said Burks. We hope this will be available to patients in the not too distant future.

With feeding guidelines now recommending the introduction of peanut in the first year of life, we are diagnosing peanut allergy earlier and earlier, said Kim. The EPITOPE trial shows that the Viaskin peanut patch may not only be an effective treatment option but importantly a simple and safe option in this very young age group.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, results showed that more than one-third (37-percent) of Viaskin Peanut-treated participants in the EPITOPE trial, sponsored by DBV Technologies, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, reached a cumulative reactive dose 3444 mg. Viaskin, a patch-based non-oral immunotherapy, is a potential new class of treatment that harnesses the immune properties of the skin. It has the potential to help modify individuals underlying food allergy by desensitizing the immune system to an allergen.Viaskin Peanut is currently under clinical investigation and is not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or any other regulatory agencies. If approved, Viaskin Peanut would provide an additional treatment option to offer patients and families for whom the standard of care aloneallergen avoidance and use of rescue medicationmay not be enough.

EPITOPE was a Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial designed to allow participants to go about their normal daily activities without restrictions. After one year of treatment, Viaskin Peanut resulted in statistically superior desensitization compared with placebo, with treatment responder rates of 67.0% and 33.5%, respectively. Additionally, a shift towards less severe food challenge reactions was seen following 12 months of treatment. Similar to previous studies of Viaskin Peanut in children, the most common adverse events (AEs) were local application site reactions, which decreased in frequency and severity over time. Low rates of treatment-related anaphylaxis and epinephrine use were observed. This study demonstrated that 12 months of daily EPIT with a patch containing 250 g peanut protein (1/1000th of one peanut) was sufficient to decrease the likelihood of experiencing an allergic reaction following accidental peanut exposure. Viaskin Peanut was well-tolerated by a majority of participants and had low discontinuations due to AEs and high compliance rates.

UNC School of Medicine contact: Brittany Phillips

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12 Months of Treatment with EPIT Superior to Placebo in ... - UNC Health and UNC School of Medicine

Immunology

Absci, The Kennedy Institute for immunotherapies development – Pharmaceutical Technology

Absci has collaborated with the University of Oxfords Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology to expedite the development of AI-driven immunotherapies.

The collaboration will use the integrated drug creation platform of Absci and the clinical immunology datasets from the Kennedy Institute to identify antibodies to immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and autoimmune conditions with unprecedented speed.

Absci will utilise the generative AI models with genomics datasets from the Kennedy Institute to identify new antibodies from patients with immune responses to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), ulcerative colitis and Crohns disease.

The company will then reassemble the antigen-antibody pairs, using its reverse immunology approach, as starting points for the development of drugs.

Absci founder and CEO Sean McClain stated: The Kennedy Institutes vast, high-quality biorepository data expand Abscis strategic research and development portfolio and aim to unlock major advances for a range of immune-mediated conditions that millions suffer from.

Together with our established data partnerships with St. Johns Cancer Institute and Aster Insights, this partnership gives Absci a robust data pipeline that enables our AI platform across a wide range of therapeutic areas as we build our internal therapeutic pipeline.

The companys integrated drug creation platform combines data, AI and wet-lab capabilities for screening several cells per week.

This allows the platform to move from AI-designed antibodies to lab-validated candidates in as little as six weeks.

The Kennedy Institute clinical research director Christopher Buckley stated: Abscis reverse immunology approach promises to turn clinical data into pharmaceutical drugs.

We are excited about the potential for generative AI to accelerate the discovery of promising drug candidates and better understand their potential efficacy and safety profiles.

This partnership will help accelerate our findings in the clinic into new immunotherapies for patients.

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Absci, The Kennedy Institute for immunotherapies development - Pharmaceutical Technology

Immunology

Customizing T Cell-Based Immunotherapies in a ‘SNAP’ – UPMC

5/9/2023

PITTSBURGH University of Pittsburgh researchers have developed a universal receptor system that allows T cells to recognize any cell surface target, enabling highly customizable CAR T cell and other immunotherapies for treating cancer and other diseases. The discovery could extend into solid tumors and give more patients access to the game-changing results CAR T cell therapy has produced in certain blood cancers.

Described in a Nature Communications study published today, the new approach involves engineering T cells with receptors bearing a universal SNAPtag" that fuses with antibodies targeting different proteins. By tweaking the type or dose of these antibodies, treatments could be tailored for optimal immune responses.

The researchers showed that their SNAP approach works in two important receptors: CAR receptors, a synthetic T cell receptor that coordinates a suite of immune responses, and SynNotch, a synthetic receptor that can be programmed to activate just about any gene. With the addition of SNAP, the possibilities for customized therapies become almost endless.

We showed for the first time that we can make a universal SynNotch receptor. This SNAP-SynNotch system is super programmable because you can have both designer input and designer gene output, said senior author Jason Lohmueller, Ph.D., assistant professor of surgery and immunology in the division of surgical oncology at the Pitt School of Medicine and investigator at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. Our hope is that we can use this approach to make cell therapies and deliver genes for cancer, autoimmune disorders, organ transplantation tolerance and more.

CAR T cell immunotherapy involves engineering a patients own cells so that the T cell receptor recognizes a specific protein on cancer cells before infusing them back into the patient.

One of the big problems with CAR T therapy is that youre targeting just one protein, explained Lohmueller. If the tumor evolves to lose that protein or downregulate it, you need to re-engineer the T cells a second time, which is a highly involved and expensive process.

To overcome this problem, Lohmueller, first author Elisa Ruffo, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate at Pitt, Alexander Deiters, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at Pitt and their colleagues developed universal SNAP-CAR T cells by adding a SNAPtag enzyme to the CAR receptor. These cells are administered along with cancer-targeting antibodies that are labeled with a molecule called benzylguanine.

Via a bio-orthogonal chemistry a type of reaction that occurs in living systems without interfering with natural processes the SNAPtag reacts with benzylguanine, fusing the antibody to the receptor. Adding different antibodies, at the same time or one after another, allows the receptor to recognize different tumor features.

Whats unique about our approach is how the T cell interacts with the antibody. Its not just binding, but fusing via covalent attachment the strongest form of chemical bond, explained Lohmueller. This type of bio-orthogonal approach has been shown to work in animals for imaging purposes, but were among the first to use it therapeutically, so were really pushing the boundaries of covalent technology.

An advantage of this tight bond means that activation of the receptor can be achieved with lower doses of antibody, said Lohmueller. Using mathematical modeling, graduate student Adam Butchy and Natasa Miskov-Zivanov, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Pitts Swanson School of Engineering, showed that it may also be possible to get activity from weaker interactions between antibodies and tumor cells, giving greater flexibility to the types of cancer proteins that can be targeted.

The covalent bond was also the secret ingredient for creating SNAP-SynNotch cells. When a SynNotch receptor is activated, mechanical pulling forces stretch the receptor to expose part of the protein, which is then cut to release a transcription factor that travels to the cells nucleus to turn on expression of a chosen gene.

We found that we needed the strength of a covalent bond to tolerate that pulling force, explained Lohmueller. If we just had binding between receptor and antibody, the receptor would come apart and we wouldnt get signaling.

The researchers showed that their universal SNAP-CAR and SNAP-SynNotch receptors could be activated in response to different targets by adding the corresponding antibodies. SNAP-CAR T cells were also able to simultaneously target multiple proteins on different types of cells, suggesting that they could help avoid cancer relapse due to variation in tumor targets or loss of those targets.

In a mouse model of cancer, treatment with SNAP-CAR T cells shrunk tumors and greatly prolonged survival, an important proof-of-concept that sets the stage to test this approach in clinical trials in partnership with Coeptis Therapeutics, which has licensed the SNAP-CAR technology from Pitt.

Other authors on the study were Yaniv Tivon, Victor So, Michael Kvorjak, Avani Parikh, M.S., Eric L. Adams, M.D., and Olivera J. Finn, Ph.D., all of Pitt or UPMC.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01 GM142007, R35 CA210039, R21 AI130815, 1S10OD011925-01 and P3 0CA047904), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (W911NF-17-1-0135), the Italian Foundation for Cancer Research (22321), and the Michael G Wells Prize.

PHOTO DETAILS: (click image for high-res version)

CREDIT: Jason LohmuellerCAPTION: Jason Lohmueller, Ph.D., assistant professor of surgery and immunology in the division of surgical oncology at the Pitt School of Medicine and investigator at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center

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Customizing T Cell-Based Immunotherapies in a 'SNAP' - UPMC

Immunology

Understanding Lupus: an interview with the Garvan Institute – News-Medical.Net

To commemorate World Lupus Day, we spoke to Elissa Deenick, co-lead of the Precision Immunology Program at the Garvan Institute, about the current state of lupus understanding and what needs to happen to make lupus visible.

My name is Elissa Deenick, Im a lab head and co-lead of the Precision Immunology Program at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, and a Scientia A/Prof at UNSW Sydney. I have 20 years of experience studying the signals that control immune cells. My research asks how we can ensure these cells make a protective immune response while avoiding harmful responses such as autoimmunity (where the immune system attacks our own bodies) and allergy. I do this by studying patients with rare genetic diseases that disrupt the immune system and applying what we learn there to understand how the immune system goes wrong in other diseases like lupus.

The exact pathophysiology of lupus and what drives it is very complicated and there are likely many factors involved. We do know that in lupus, B cells, which usually make antibodies that protect us from infection, end up making antibodies against normal parts of the body like DNA. These antibodies then bind to their targets like DNA, forming what is called immune complexes. These can build up in different parts of the body like the kidney, joints or the skin where they induce inflammation and cause the damage that we know is associated with lupus.

The incidence of lupus seems to be increasing and thats true of many autoimmune diseases so lupus is part of that trend. That increase is probably, in part, an increase in awareness and diagnosis, but theres almost certainly a real increase in incidence there as well. However, it is not clear why these diseases are increasing thats something we really need more research to understand.

Weve discovered different ways in which the immune system can become dysregulated and cause inappropriate production of antibodies.

For example, poor clearance of dead or dying cells (which means there are dead bits of cells in places they shouldnt be, containing things like DNA that can activate B cells), dysregulation of B cells, and inappropriate production of cytokines such as interferons.

But despite the fact that our understanding of lupus has increased, we still dont have a cure for lupus and patients are largely dependent on immunosuppressive drugs that can put them at risk of side effects such as infections.

One of the biggest issues in lupus is that its almost certainly not one disease, but instead a cluster of diseases with similar symptoms but completely different drivers of disease in different people. And of course, if the underlying cause of disease is different from patient to patient, then the most effective treatment is also likely going to differ too. This heterogeneity amongst patients probably partly explains why many clinical trials of new drugs have failed in the past: you may have 10% of people in the lupus population who may respond well to that drug, but thats going to be obscured by the other 90% of people who respond poorly because thats the wrong drug for them. The focus for research then needs to be on ways to identify the driver of disease in each patient so we can match the drug to the disease.

One of the ways that Im approaching that question is by studying rare patients who have what are called inborn errors of immunity. These are caused by rare genetic variants in key genes that are important for the immune system. These genetic variants disrupt the function of those pathways and make the immune system go wrong. And in some cases, part of the way they make it go wrong is that B cells produce these pathogenic antibodies that cause autoimmunity and lupus. The significance of this for us is that it identifies pathways that can be drivers of disease. So what were doing is studying those pathways and then seeing if they might also be drivers in other patients with lupus (even if they dont have the genetic variant).

Image Credit: adike/Shutterstock.com

Another question were interested in is the infections in lupus patients. People with lupus have a higher risk of severe infections, which can require time in hospital to get them under control. The problem is, though, that were not good at predicting which people with lupus are at the highest risk of infection. Were trying to work out ways of predicting who is at greatest risk and whether thats because of the immunosuppressive drugs theyre on or whether its something thats intrinsic to the dysregulation of their immune system.

Recent advances in single-cell sequencing techniques, such as single-cell RNA sequencing, have enabled us to analyse immune cell populations in patients at an unprecedented level of detail. These technologies are illuminating how immune responses differ between people and vary under different conditions, such as in lupus patients or in individuals with COVID-19 infections. With new insight into these granular differences, we can achieve a much deeper understanding of how the immune system functions in both health and disease. This has enabled a deeper dive into human immunology, including lupus pathology.

I think there is increasing awareness about lupus and that may be in part from celebrities coming out but also I think the COVID-19 pandemic has driven a greater understanding of the immune system in general. The general public is now much more familiar with talking about B cells and T cells and antibodies, so when people ask me about my work theres already a much greater level of understanding of these concepts. I think that helps with understanding and awareness of immune-mediated disease as well.

Image Credit: Rito Succeed/Shutterstock.com

Again, I think the idea that lupus is one disease with one solution is quite commonplace, unfortunately. The reality is that the experience of lupus is very different from person to person and not all lupus can be treated in the same way.

I think we need to keep hearing stories directly from the people who are affected by lupus how it affects their lives and health. Many people still have misconceptions about what lupus is and how serious and life-altering it can be, but sharing real stories is a powerful way to raise awareness and build empathy.

A/Prof Elissa Deenick is head of the Lymphocyte Signalling and Activation Lab and co-leads the Precision Immunology Program at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. She is a Scientia A/Prof at the Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney.

A/Prof Deenick undertook her PhD with Dr Phil Hodgkin at the Centenary Institute/University of Sydney. Following her PhD she moved to Canada to take up a postdoctoral position in the lab of Dr Pam Ohashi at the University of Toronto, looking at the signalling pathways controlling T cell activation and tolerance.

She returned to Sydney to work at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, where she continues to uncover the signals controlling lymphocyte activation and differentiation and how this is controlled to ensure protection against infection while avoiding harmful immune responses like allergy and autoimmunity.

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Danielle graduated with a 2:1 in Biological Sciences with Professional Training Year from Cardiff University. During her Professional Training Year, Danielle worked with registered charity the Frozen Ark Project, creating and promoting various forms of content within their brand guidelines. Danielle has a great appreciation and passion for science communication and enjoys reading non-fiction and fiction in her spare time. Her other interests include doing yoga, collecting vinyl, and visiting museums.

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Ellis, Danielle. 2023. Understanding Lupus: an interview with the Garvan Institute. News-Medical, viewed 13 May 2023, https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230509/Understanding-Lupus-an-interview-with-the-Garvan-Institute.aspx.

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Understanding Lupus: an interview with the Garvan Institute - News-Medical.Net

Immunology

Professor Laura Mackay wins LEO Foundation Award in Region … – The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Professor Laura Mackay, Laboratory Head and Immunology Theme Leader at the Doherty Institute, and National Health and Media Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow at the University of Melbourne, has been awarded the LEO Foundation Award in Region Asia-Pacific for her contributions to our understanding of T cells and their relevance for immunology memory.

The prestigious honour, which was announced at the International Societies for Investigative Dermatology (ISID) in Japan earlier this week, aims to highlight outstanding young researchers and scientists from around the world whose work represents an extraordinary contribution to skin research.

Professor Mackay praised the support of the LEO Foundation for early- and mid-career researchers, like herself, and said she was honoured to receive the recognition.

The LEO Foundations work to highlight young skin researchers will greatly support our teams pursuit to understand the role of memory T cells in the skin, Professor Mackay said.

It is an honour to be recognised for this award among the talented pool of researchers across the Asia-Pacific region and to be afforded the opportunity to champion skin immunology research.

Based in Denmark, the LEO Foundation 's philanthropic awards and grants aim to support the best international research in skin diseases.

Three times a year, three outstanding scientists from the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific receive a LEO Foundation Award to support their promising research in skin health. The Awards are granted in open competition with all award applications being evaluated by an independent and international global review panel.

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Professor Laura Mackay wins LEO Foundation Award in Region ... - The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Immunology

Trinity’s Prof Ed Lavelle recognised by ISI for vaccine research – SiliconRepublic.com

Lavelle primarily focuses on developing injectable and mucosal vaccines for infectious diseases, along with therapeutic vaccines for cancer.

Prof Ed Lavelle of Trinity College Dublin has been recognised by the Irish Society for Immunology (ISI) for his major contributions to immunology research and education.

He has received the ISIs Annual Award, which is given to outstanding Irish immunologists that push forward our understanding of immunology and health improvement.

Lavelle works in Trinitys School of Biochemistry and Immunology, with his research primarily focused on developing injectable and mucosal vaccines for infectious diseases.

He also leads a research group that is developing therapeutic vaccines for cancer and investigating vaccine strategies that promote immunogenic cell death, with the goal of enhancing protective immunity.

Lavelle was the president of the ISI from 2012 until 2020, during which time he organised multiple conferences, chaired session and acted as a peer reviewer for immunology journals. He has also supervised 21 PhD students to completion.

In 2019, Lavelle received nearly 96,000 from the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) programme. This SFI programme provides capital and training in entrepreneurship skills to researchers that seek to commercialise their lifes work.

Last year, Lavelle was a recipient of Trinitys Innovation Awards, receiving one of the years inventors awards, along with Dr Marco Ruffini of Trinitys School of Computer Science and Statistics.

Lavelle will present a public lecture at 7pm tonight (9 May) in the Tercentenary Hall in Trinitys Biomedical Sciences Institute. This lecture will get to the core of how vaccines work and is available for anyone to attend.

This is a golden era for vaccine research and we hope that our work on vaccine adjuvants can contribute to further advances, particularly for cancer vaccination where there is a desperate need for novel and more effective approaches, Lavelle said.

Last month, Trinity awarded its 2023 Dawson prize in Genetics toDr Katalin Karik, the Hungarian-born scientist whose research into mRNA vaccines helped create life-saving vaccines against Covid-19.

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Trinity's Prof Ed Lavelle recognised by ISI for vaccine research - SiliconRepublic.com

Immunology

Allison Institute announces appointment of inaugural members – EurekAlert

HOUSTON The James P. Allison Institute at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced the appointment of its first members, James P. Allison, Ph.D., Padmanee Sharma, M.D., Ph.D., Jennifer Wargo, M.D., Sangeeta Goswami, M.D., Ph.D., and Kenneth Hu, Ph.D. In addition, Garry Nolan, Ph.D., will join the Allison Institute as an adjunct member.

These members include pioneering researchers who have made notable contributions to science as well as rising stars on the path toward important breakthroughs. This group will bring diverse expertise in immunobiology to lead groundbreaking research that will deepen our understanding of the immune system and bring the benefits of immunotherapy to all patients.

We are proud to be joined by these stellar scientists, and we are confident that together we will set the tone for the exceptional research we aim to support at the Allison Institute, said Allison, director of the Allison Institute and regental chair of Immunology at MDAnderson. Our collective expertise in areas that now will include immune-microbiome interactions, epigenetic mechanisms, and novel methods for spatial transcriptomics and proteomics fits well with our priority research areas, and we look forward to collaboratively advancing the field.

The Allison Institute was launched to drive breakthroughs that will integrate immunobiology across disciplines. Building on a deep commitment to discovery science, Allison Institute members will incorporate laboratory and clinical insights to develop novel and synergetic therapies that enable cures for more patients.

MD Anderson is committed to integrating exceptional science across disciplines to deliver meaningful advances for patients, said Giulio Draetta, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific officer at MDAnderson. The Allison Institute and its members are a testament to that approach, and I look forward to the collective discoveries to come from these researchers working seamlessly together and across the institution.

New members bring diverse expertise, include rising stars and established scientists

Institute members are selected based on alignment with research priority areas and are approved by the Allison Institute director and scientific advisory board.

Membership levels include:

Core, associate and assistant members are provided with seven years of research support aligned with their membership level. In addition, they have joint appointments in MDAnderson academic departments, enabling them to collaborate seamlessly with clinicians and scientists across the institution. Adjunct members are recruited to collaborate with the Allison Institute and provided resources to support specific projects aligned with the institutes research goals.

Our members represent the top minds from around the world, with diverse skill sets and backgrounds, and we are pleased to expand understanding through our work at the Allison Institute, said Sharma, director of scientific programs for the Allison Institute and professor ofGenitourinary Medical OncologyandImmunology at MDAnderson. Through our unique research model, we aim to unleash their individual brilliance in a collaborative and inclusive environment and to train the next generation of immunotherapy leaders.

In addition to their leadership roles, Allison and Sharma are appointed as core members and will continue to lead impactful research focused on optimizing the use of immunotherapy to improve patient outcomes.

James P. Allison, Ph.D., is recognized internationally for his foundational discoveries in T cell biology that launched the field of cancer immunotherapy. For his contributions, he was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. His most notable discoveries include determining the T cell receptor structure and recognizing that CD28 is the major costimulatory molecule that allows full activation of nave T cells and prevents anergy in T cell clones. His lab resolved a major controversy by demonstrating that CTLA-4 inhibits T cell activation by opposing CD28-mediated costimulation and that blockade of CTLA-4 could enhance T cell responses, leading to tumor rejection in animal models. He proposed and validated that blocking immune checkpoints, such as CTLA-4, can be a powerful cancer treatment strategy. These seminal findings established the field of immune checkpoint blockade therapy for cancer and led to the development of ipilimumab, the first FDA-approved immune checkpoint inhibitor. Allisons current work seeks to improve current immune checkpoint blockade therapies and to identify new targets that will unleash the immune system to eradicate cancer.

Padmanee Sharma, M.D., Ph.D., is an internationally renowned physician scientist who pioneered the first neoadjuvant clinical trial with immune checkpoint therapy in 2006, establishing safety and clinical responses in order to advance immunotherapy toward earlier disease stages. Her work also provided the first clinical data demonstrating that bladder tumors can respond to immune checkpoint therapy. Sharma performs extensive studies on patients tumor samples collected from neoadjuvant trials to define human immune responses within the tumor microenvironment and to identify mechanisms of response and resistance to checkpoint inhibitors. She has identified mechanisms of response to immune checkpoint therapy, including ICOS+ T cells, tertiary lymphoid structures and ARID1A mutations in combination with CXCL13 overexpression. Her work has also identified mechanisms of resistance, including VISTA+ myeloid cells, increased EZH2 expression in T cells, and loss of interferon signaling in tumor cells. These data enable Sharma to lead innovative pre-clinical and clinical studies testing new combination immunotherapies and biomarkers. As a core member, she will work closely with other researchers to build scientific teams that bridge multiple areas of expertise to design novel treatment strategies.

Jennifer Wargo, M.D., who joins the Allison Institute as a core member, is professor ofSurgical OncologyandGenomic Medicineand director ofMDAnderson'sPlatform for Innovative Microbiome and Translational Research (PRIME-TR). A world-renowned physician scientist, Wargo pioneered a new understanding of how the gut microbiome influences responses to immunotherapy and other cancer treatments. Through this research, she and her team have determined how microbiome changes can positively impact immunotherapy responses, leading to an ongoing dietary intervention trial in melanoma. As a core member, Wargo will continue to lead innovative research on the impact of the gut and tumor microbiome on cancer and immunotherapy responses. She is committed to advancing the understanding and treatment of disease through science, and she is deeply invested in working broadly with investigators to find better ways to treat, intercept and prevent cancer.

Sangeeta Goswami, M.D., Ph.D., joining as an assistant member, is assistant professor of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology at MD Anderson. A gifted physician scientist, Goswami both cares for patients with bladder and kidney cancers and conducts exceptional discovery and translational research that integrates the fields of epigenetics and immunology. She is leading pioneering studies focused on identifying epigenetic pathways that regulate differentiation and function of immune cell subsets. Goswamis current research focuses on uncovering key epigenetic factors involved in primary and adaptive resistance to immunotherapy, especially myeloid cell-mediated suppressive pathways. This will guide strategies to target these factors and overcome immunotherapy resistance in tumors with high levels of myeloid cells, such as glioblastoma. She aims to design rational therapeutic combinations of epigenetic modulators and immune checkpoint inhibitors in a tumor-specific manner.

Kenneth Hu, Ph.D., joins the Allison Institute as an assistant member. Recruited from the University of California San Francisco through a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) award, Hu will join MD Anderson as assistant professor of Immunology. His research interests are founded in developing novel tools to push the boundaries of measurable cell states and interactions. As a graduate student, he adapted atomic force microscopy to study single-cell generated forces and mechanical properties. While a postdoctoral researcher, he developed ZipSeq, a novel technique using light-based uncaging of nucleotides to barcode cells of interest and map single-cell sequencing data back to defined regions in a tissue. His research at MD Anderson will focus on broadening the applications of this technique to study spatial tumor heterogeneity and its role in dictating responses to immunotherapy.

Garry Nolan, Ph.D., who joins the Allison Institute as an adjunct member, is the Rachford and Carlota A. Harris Professor in the department of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. His research interests include hematopoiesis, cancer and leukemia, autoimmunity and inflammation, and computational approaches for network and systems immunology. His efforts are aimed at enabling a deeper understanding of normal immune function as well as detailed substructures of leukemias and solid cancers and their interactions with the immune system. Nolans lab developed a novel approach for single cell analysis advance using a mass spectrometry-flow cytometry hybrid device, called CyTOF. His collaboration with the Allison Institute will focus on a second technology developed in his lab, CODEX (CO-Detection by indEXing). This innovative in situ imaging approach allows for the simultaneous visualization of dozens of proteins and/or RNA targets in a single tumor sample. Joining his expertise with patient samples collected by MD Andersons immunotherapy platform will help elucidate the interactions between tumor and cells in the immune microenvironment for both primary tumors and metastases.

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Allison Institute announces appointment of inaugural members - EurekAlert