School of Infection & Immunity

Dr Matthew Burgess

Title:

Macrophage recruitment to the lunch in viral and allergic immunity

Synopsis:

The lungs are a critical barrier tissue facilitating essential gas exchange, whilst protecting the body from inhaled environmental challenges. Myeloid cells play a core role in the immune response to many of these challenges, both limiting infectious spread and driving aberrant responses. Here I show how the recruitment of monocytes to the lung is a key step in anti-viral immunity, and allergic lung remodelling. Systemic monocytic responses to gut helminth infection prime the immune system for a secondary lung infection with respiratory syncytial virus, accelerating the recruitment of anti-viral monocytic macrophages to reduce viral propagation. Recruitment of monocytes is also observed during the establishment of lung remodelling in a triple allergen extract model of severe allergic asthma. Both alveolar and interstitial tissue resident macrophages show significant phenotypic changes indicative of partial replacement by recruited monocytes. These allergen-induced resident macrophages are thought to network with remodelled matrix and fibroblasts to then maintain the pathological airway remodelling observed in severe allergic asthma.

Bio:

Matthew received his degree in biochemistry from the University of Oxford before completing a PhD on the roles of macrophages in diabetic wound healing in 2016. He then moved to Scotland working on murine models of respiratory syncytial virus infection at the University of Edinburgh before starting an ongoing postdoctoral position at the University of Aberdeen in 2024 to study immune-stromal networks in allergic airway remodelling.

First published: 16 January 2026

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