Using transcriptional analyses to understand recognition of tumours by natural killer cells
- Research Opportunity
- PhD students, Masters by Research, Honours students
- Department / Centre
- Microbiology and Immunology
- Location
- Doherty Institute
Primary Supervisor | Number | Webpage | |
---|---|---|---|
Professor Andrew Brooks | agbrooks@unimelb.edu.au | (03) 8344 9925 | Personal web page |
Co-supervisor | Number | Webpage | |
---|---|---|---|
Dr Sanda Stankovic | sandas@unimelb.edu.au | ||
Dr Philippa Saunders | philippa.saunders@unimelb.edu.au |
Summary This project will combine molecular and cellular immunology and offers a number of relevant immunological techniques including cell culture, functional in vitro assays with primary human cells, flow cytometric analysis, cell sorting, RNA extraction, RNASeq library preparation along downstream analysis of transcriptome and further identification of candidate genes.
Project Details
NK cells are a major component of the immune response to viral infections and cancer. As such, understanding how they are functionally regulated and the potential to manipulate their function in a clinical setting is of great importance. NK cells respond to virally infected cells or tumor modified cells through recognising down-regulation of HLA-I molecules on their cell surface. Normal cells have high levels of HLA-I on their cell surface, which following engagement of KIR receptors, inhibits NK cell activation. However, in a settings of virus infection and cancer, HLA-I can be down-regulated leading to their targeting by NK cells. Detailed analyses shows genetic variability in the quality of this inhibition. Although understood at a cellular level, much less is known about underlying molecular processes that drive these distinct cellular outcomes. Understanding these intracellular pathways offers an opportunity to fine-tune NK cell activity in a variety of clinical settings. This project will therefore directly investigate how (a) the strength of KIR-HLA interactions and (b) the types of receptors engaged, regulates functional responses of primary human NK cells. This project will combine molecular and cellular immunology and offers a number of relevant immunological techniques including cell culture, functional in vitro assays with primary human cells, flow cytometric analysis, cell sorting, RNA extraction, RNASeq library preparation along downstream analysis of transcriptome and further identification of candidate genes.
Faculty Research Themes
Cancer, Infection and Immunology
School Research Themes
Cancer in Biomedicine, Infection & Immunity
Research Opportunities
PhD students, Masters by Research, Honours students
Students who are interested in joining this project will need to consider their elegibility as well as other requirements before contacting the supervisor of this research
Key Contact
For further information about this research, please contact a supervisor.
Department / Centre
Research Group / Unit / Centre
Brooks laboratory: Innate immunity; anti-viral immunity
Research Node
Doherty InstituteMDHS Research library
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