PhD Talks

  • A. S. M. Rubayet-Ul-Alam, Annie Peacock, Utku Gunes, Broc Drury
  • Location: Room 582, Adam Smith Building

Titles:

A. S. M. Rubayet-Ul-Alam: Prediction of antigenic evolution of priority viruses from a single sequence


Annie Peacock: The role of the chemokine receptor CCR5 in Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA)


Utku Gunes: Translational studies of a novel series of vaccine adjuvants


Broc Drury: Teasing apart the roles of IFN, TLR and GM-CSF signalling in driving monocyte and macrophage phenotype and function during intestinal inflammation

A. S. M. Rubayet-Ul-Alam

 

 

Synopsis:

The preparedness gaps in the previous pandemics culminated in unprecedented loss in health and economy, and now there has never been a higher concern about the next pandemic after COVID-19. For tackling the next pandemic, the combined efforts for better surveillance, developing specific diagnostics, and quicker design of a vaccine or drug have already been proposed. That 'future' pandemic being unstoppable, the best idea would be to slow down by taking swift actions at the earliest phase, i.e., predicting antigenic evolution of these emerging novel viruses from a single sequence will help in designing effective vaccine and drugs. Traditional methods for measuring virus antigenicity require high volume of sequence data together with the relevant experiment results, losing valuable time at the initial phase of outbreaks. Considering there would not be much related sequence data for the pathogen 'X' or novel pandemic-causing virus, we endeavour to predict antigenic evolution from minimal information available.

Annie Peacock

Synopsis:

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is the most common form of vasculitis affecting individuals over 50 in Europe. Despite giving the disease its name, the formation and function of multinucleated giant cells (MGCs) in GCA remain poorly understood. Gaining insight into the basic biology of these cells may reveal new therapeutic targets. The chemokine receptor CCR5, known to play a role in vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, has also been shown to influence the development of other multinucleated cells, including osteoclasts. This work therefore investigates the role of CCR5 in the formation of MGCs in GCA.

Utku Gunes

Synopsis:

Adjuvants are essential components of many vaccines, as they enhance the antigen-specific immune response and contribute to overall vaccine effectiveness. Although adjuvant mechanisms of action are complex, they ultimately lead to enhanced dendritic cell-T cell (DC-T) interactions. Using high-throughput imaging to screen compound libraries for agents that enhance DC-T interactions, we identified a series of potential vaccine adjuvants. Their activity was confirmed in murine studies in vitro and in vivo.
The aims of Utku’s PhD project are to perform translational studies on these adjuvants, developing humanised adjuvant screens, testing adjuvant activity and providing molecular mechanism of action data.

Broc Drury

 

Synopsis:

In the gut, newly recruited monocytes continually replenish the majority of tissue-resident macrophages in a process that is essential for the maintenance of homeostasis and in defence against infection. However, in diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), active inflammation has been strongly linked to a dysregulation in this process whereby newly recruited monocytes become distinctly proinflammatory, and play an important role in driving overt inflammation and tissue damage. My PhD has focused on a transcriptionally defined population of inflammation-associated monocytes (IAMs) in a DSS mouse model of colitis which have a strong transcriptional similarity to IAMs found in active IBD tissue. Using a combination of antibody blockade and transgenic mouse models, I have shown that IFN and TLR signalling drive distinct modules of this proinflammatory IAM phenotype. Additionally, contrary to historical belief, I find that GM-CSF signalling drives a homeostatic tissue resident macrophage phenotype and is not directly required to drive the proinflammatory nature of IAMs during gut inflammation.

First published: 19 August 2025

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