Infection, immunity, inflammation

Our Infection, Immunity and Inflammation research theme (3Is) brings together laboratory scientists, clinicians and practitioners to link our biomedical research with clinical and public/environmental health applications.

Driven by a strong collaborative, interdisciplinary approach this research focuses on answering complex questions and global health challenges in the areas of liver disease, innate immunity, pollution and health, bacterial pathogens and antibiotic resistance, vaccine development and oral health and disease.

This research aims to deliver impact and patient/public benefit through:

• development of improved diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for infectious disease and other conditions
  
• new approaches to the treatment and prevention of inflammatory conditions
  
• novel detection technologies for use in public and environmental health.

Infection, immunity and inflammation research forms part of our Clinician led medical research, public health and oral health and disease research

Delivery of our research and work with external partners is facilitated by our:

• state-of-the-art biomedical laboratory facilities
  
• portfolio of unique cell/tissue model technologies
• expertise in systems biology, light microscopy, medical statistics and clinical trials (Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit)
• close partnership with genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics researchers from our cross-cutting diagnostics research theme.

Our research

The infection, immunity and inflammation theme encompasses:

• Hepatology (Professor Matthew Cramp, Dr David Sheridan, Dr Ashwin Dhanda, Dr Daniel Felmlee) – laboratory research and clinical studies / trials into liver disease, focus on hepatitis C, alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease / steatohepatitis and liver cancer.
  
• Endotoxin and immunity (Professor Simon Jackson) – environmental detection and human health effects of endotoxins and pollutants, inflammatory response to bacterial molecules, and sepsis.
  
• Novel vaccines (Dr Michael Jarvis) – development of CMV vaccine vectors for infectious disease in human and animal health, including Ebola, HIV, flu, hepatitis C, Bovine TB and swine fever, and as cancer therapeutics.
  
• Antibiotic resistant pathogens (Dr Mathew Upton, Dr Philip Warburton) – novel antibiotics, environmental detection of bacterial pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes, investigation of uropathogenic E coli.
• Respiratory health (Dr Rupert Jones) – chronic lung disease detection, care and social impact caused by exposure to particulate pollution, especially in the developing world.
  

• Cancer immunology (Professor Ji-Liang Li) – tumour associated macrophages, tumour development and metastasis, and drug resistance.
  
• Oral health and disease – periodontal (Dr Svetislav Zaric), 3D tissue engineering and biocompatibility (Dr Vehid Salih) and inflammation and the vasculature in oral disease (Dr Louise Belfield, Dr Zoe Brookes) research including oral cancer, macrophages and the microbiology, detection and treatment of periodontitis.
  
• Retroviruses (Dr Robert Belshaw) – role of endogenous retroviruses in human disease, including cancer, and immune system function.
  
• Mitochondrial biology (Dr Charles Affourtit) – role of mitochondria dysfunction in metabolic and neurodegenerative disease, and immune system function.
• Microbial Diagnostics and Infection Control (Dr Tina Joshi) – rapid diagnostic innovations for antimicrobial resistant pathogens in healthcare and bacterial infection control.
  
• Macrophages (Dr Gyorgy Fejer, Dr Andrew Foey) – viral / respiratory infection response, pathogen tolerance, environmental pollutants, immunity and oral and gastro-intestinal inflammatory disease.