| Elaine Bignell (Head of Infection, Immunity and Respiratory Medicine, Manchester University) |
| Thu 10 Sep 2020, 16:00 - 17:00 |
| Online (Blackboard collaborate) |
If you have a question about this talk, please contact: Julie Fyffe (jfyffe)
This is a joint Edinburgh Immunology Group (EIG)/SynthSys seminar.
Joining link https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/cb74cacd2307416890c517e1b6224878
Elaine is the Head of the Infection, Immunity and Respiratory Medicine at Manchester University and her research seeks a mechanistic understanding of fungal lung disease with a view to developing novel diagnostics and antifungal therapies.
More information about Elaine's lab can be found here: https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/elaine.bignell.html
Abstract
The human lung is continually exposed to spores of the airborne mould Aspergillus fumigatus. Inhaled spores are small enough to bypass mucociliary clearance mechanisms and reach the alveoli of the lung where interaction between host and pathogen cells can lead to fungal clearance, or to inflammatory or invasive fungal lung disease. A. fumigatus is an accidental pathogen whose encounters with the host, although frequent, are circumstantial in nature. The capacity of A. fumigatus to cause human disease is unique amongst several hundred related Aspergillus species and relative to closest sequenced relatives but there are no large scale genetic events which signify recent evolution of pathogenicity, so how has A. fumigtaus evolved to become a successful human pathogen?
Research in my lab seeks a mechanistic understanding of fungal lung disease with a view to developing novel diagnostics and antifungal therapies. Our approaches transcend multiple experimental scales to address disease outcomes at the molecular, cellular, tissue, organ and whole animal levels. Recently, we combined this suite of tools with a systems level approach to define pathogenicity in Aspergillus fumigatus. We are also developing inhibitors of fungal pH signalling as novel antifungal drugs, and studying secreted fungal proteins as novel vaccine candidates and diagnostic tools.
In this talk I will present the data from several new genome-scale studies addressing the A. fumigatus regulatory network driving stress adaptation and fungal virulence in mammalian hosts, and examine how this knowledge might lead to novel therapeutic interventions.