Search
Honorary Research Associate
Anya Deborah Pat Jones Strickland Holt BSc MSc PhD PhD PhD, DSc, FRCPath, FRCPI, FAA Honorary Research Associate Head, Pregnancy and Early Life
The immunological changes underpinning acquisition of remission (also called sustained unresponsiveness) following food immunotherapy remain poorly defined. Limited access to effective therapies and biosamples from treatment responders has prevented progress. Probiotic peanut oral immunotherapy is highly effective at inducing remission, providing an opportunity to investigate immune changes.
Human rhinovirus (RV)-induced exacerbations of asthma and wheeze are a major cause of emergency room presentations and hospital admissions among children. Previous studies have shown that immune response patterns during these exacerbations are heterogeneous and are characterized by the presence or absence of robust interferon responses.
Immunotherapy has revolutionised the treatment of cancers by exploiting the immune system to eliminate tumour cells. Despite the impressive response in a proportion of patients, clinical benefit has been limited thus far.
Incomplete maturation of immune regulatory functions at birth is antecedent to the heightened risk for severe respiratory infections during infancy. Our forerunner animal model studies demonstrated that maternal treatment with the microbial-derived immune training agent OM-85 during pregnancy promotes accelerated postnatal maturation of mechanisms that regulate inflammatory processes in the offspring airways.
T-cell activation induces context-specific gene expression programs that promote energy generation and biosynthesis, progression through the cell cycle and ultimately cell differentiation. The aim of this study was to apply the omni ATAC-seq method to characterize the landscape of chromatin changes induced by T-cell activation in mature naïve CD4+ T-cells.
High risk for virus-induced asthma exacerbations in children is associated with an IRF7lo immunophenotype, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Here, we applied a Systems Biology approach to an animal model comprising rat strains manifesting high versus low susceptibility to experimental asthma, induced by virus/allergen coexposure, to elucidate the mechanism(s)-of-action of the high-risk asthma immunophenotype.
Anaphylaxis is a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction driven primarily by the activation of mast cells. We still fail to understand factors underlying reaction severity. Furthermore, there is currently no reliable diagnostic test to confirm anaphylaxis in the emergency department.
Mesothelioma is characterised by its aggressive invasive behaviour, affecting the surrounding tissues of the pleura or peritoneum. We compared an invasive pleural model with a non-invasive subcutaneous model of mesothelioma and performed transcriptomic analyses on the tumour samples.