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• infectious disease and the immune system

• Medicine
• Surgery
• Emergency Medicine
• General Practice
• Paediatrics

• Dermatology
• Infectious diseases
• Immunology
• Nephrology
• Orthopaedic surgery

Anti microbial resistance is currently one of the major threats to global health and society. The WHO highlights the epidemic of antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus as a particular concern and strongly advocates for the development of an anti-S.aureus vaccine to counteract the epidemic of MRSA, currently a major burden on healthcare settings. Research in our lab is focused on understanding the host immune response to infection with Staphylococcus aureus. The application of this research is for vaccine development. There is currently an acute unmet clinical need for an anti-S. aureus vaccine. Despite significant efforts all previous anti-S.aureus vaccines have failed in clinical trials and one of the key reasons for these failures is due to a lack of understanding of the correlates of immune protection i.e what mode of immunity needs to be induced by the vaccine to protect against infection. In particular there is a distinct lack of knowledge on how the immune system reacts to this organism in relevant patient cohorts ie those patients at particular risk from S.aureus infection e.g. Haemodialysis patients, surgical patients, patients with chronic inflammatory. Our research suggests that a cellular immune response is required to provide effective protection against S.aureus infection and we have preliminary evidence that T-helper type 1 cells maybe particularly important in providing this protection (1). . However we need a better understanding of cellular immunity in relevant patient cohorts.
1. Brown et al PlosPathogen 2015 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26539822/?i=5&from=mcloughlin%20rm

Our goal is to characterise innate and adaptive cellular immunity in patient cohorts who are at risk of S.aureus infection. We believe that infection at distinct anatomical sites may dictate the immune response elicited. In addition underlying disease pathology may significantly impact upon the nature of the immune response required to protect against S.aureus. Furthermore it maybe that the disease pathology will significantly impact upon the individuals capacity to respond to an anti-S.aureus vaccine should one become available. These are all important questions which have thus far not been addressed. We have developed a series of immunological assays in the lab which will allow us to characterise innate and adaptive immune responses occurring in patients pre, during and post infection with S.aureus. The aim of this project will be to collect relevant tissue samples I.e. Blood, skin biopsies, peritoneal fluid, abscess tissue and then to profile the phenotype and function of various innate and adaptive cell types isolated from the tissue. We will also collect extensive clinical data on these patients including their prior infection history. The outcomes of this study will enable us to identify specific immune phenotypes predictive of outcome in at risk patient groups and will also provide information on the capacity of these patients to respond to an anti-S.aureus vaccine which will directly inform clinical trial design for next generation anti-S.aureus vaccines.