Dr Katrina Pollock

  • MRC Clinician Scientist in Vaccinology (University of Oxford)
  • Location: room 103a, Clarice Pears Building

Title: Beyond the blood; responses to immunisation in the human lymph node

Synopsis: Lymph nodes play a fundamental role in human immunity as the site of integration of the innate and adaptive immune systems to produce protective immune memory. The fundamental principles of immunisation are based on this function, yet despite this, lymph nodes have rarely been studied in this context. The Lymph nodE single cell Genomics AnCestrY (LEGACY) Network is addressing this. Using brightness-mode ultrasound, draining and non-draining lymph nodes are directly imaged and sampled during the immune response to intramuscular immunisation. This approach can be used to address a variety of questions previously only possible in pre-clinical models.  Here, data from the LEGACY01 study demonstrating immune responses to an adjuvanted influenza vaccine in an ancestrally diverse cohort will be presented. Plans for expanding the Network across the UK, which have been funded by an MRC/UKRI partnership award, will be outlined, to support new research in immunity, infection, inflammation and immunisation.

Bio: Professor Katrina Pollock is an MRC Clinician Scientist in Vaccinology and Jenner Investigator at the Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford and Honorary Consultant in Sexual Health at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK. She read medicine as an undergraduate at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, and Imperial College London, UK, before completing speciality training as a clinician scientist in genitourinary and HIV medicine, with a PhD and lectureship in cellular immunology. Her work investigates cellular mechanisms of vaccine-induced immunity in the responding tissue, the lymph node, to leverage this for novel vaccine design. She supports community involvement in her research to deliver innovations that change lives for the better.  She received a departmental award from Imperial College London for substantial and exceptional achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

First published: 19 August 2025

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