Investigating T cell exhaustion to inform disease outcomes and vaccine design
Dr Anita Raposo
T cell exhaustion describes the condition when T cells lose their ability to kill certain cells such as cancer cells or cells infected with a virus.
Overcoming T cell exhaustion represents a successful strategy to reduce infectious diseases severity, restore immune resilience and improve patient outcomes.
In this research, I will be investigating the regulation of T cell function from the initial differentiation of the T cell through to T cell exhaustion using an ex vivo model system.
The goal of this project is to understand how genetic and environmental factors influence an individual’s immune cells to become exhausted, how this exhaustion can be reversed to re-activate the immune cells, and how this influences the interaction of immune cells with organs such as the skin, intestine and lungs.
Project lead: Dr Anita Raposo