Targeting T cell interactions for tailored immunity.

Hosted by: Associate Professor Anselm Enders

Abstract

Vaccines that promote and sustain CD8+ T cell memory are an ongoing challenge for infectious disease and cancer immunotherapy. TCF-1+ stem cell-like memory T cells (TSCM) have emerged as important determinants of long-lived T cell memory, making them key cellular targets for vaccination and immunotherapy. The protective capacity of TSCM cells lie in their long-term persistence, potent proliferative capacity and ability to generate effectors upon rechallenge, yet how this cell population can be therapeutically promoted is unclear. This seminar will describe how we have leveraged the inflammatory regulators of cell migration to specifically tailor responses towards TSCM generation. These findings propose a new approach to vaccine and adjuvant design where tailored TSCM formation elicits increased protection against infectious pathogens or for therapeutic cancer vaccination.

Biography

Associate Professor Joanna Groom is an NHMRC L1 Investigator fellow and laboratory head in the Immunology division of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI). Dr Groom’s research focuses on deciphering how cellular positioning and communication control immune responses, and how this can be leveraged to optimise clearance and protection from infection and cancer. This interest was piqued during her PhD, at the Garvan Institute, investigating the cellular signalling critical to lupus autoimmunity. She performed her postdoctoral research with Prof. Andrew Luster, a leader in chemokine biology at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital (HMS/MGH). Here, she found that directed cell migration into lymphoid niches is intertwined with cell fate and function. Dr Groom’s team has made a series of advancements that enable 3D imaging of intact lymphoid organs and used this to discover the distinct niches that support the differentiation of effector and memory T cells. Her current research combines imaging and transcriptional analysis to dissect the cellular interactions that mediate protection against diverse pathogenic infections and cancer.