Welcome

Welcome to Lisa O’Neill who has officially joined us as the MCCIR and Lydia Becker Institute Administrator. Lisa can be found in office 2.19 CTF.

Publications

Chenery AL., Alhallaf R., Agha Z., Ajendra J., Parkinson J.E., Cooper M.M., Chan B.HK., Eichenberger R.M., Dent L.A., Robertson A.A.B., Kupz A., Brough D., Loukas A., Sutherland T.E., Allen J.E., Giacomin P.R. Inflammasome-Independent Role for NLRP3 in Controlling Innate Antihelminth Immunity and Tissue Repair in the Lung. J Immunol. 2019 Oct 4. pii: ji1900640. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1900640. [Epub ahead of print]

Mulhearn B., Barton A., Viatte S. Using the Immunophenotype to Predict Response to Biologic Drugs in Rheumatoid Arthritis. J Pers Med. 2019 Oct 2;9(4). pii: E46. doi: 10.3390/jpm9040046.

Campbell L., Hepworth M.R., Whittingham-Dowd J., Thompson S., Bancroft A.J., Hayes K.S., Shaw T.N., Dickey B.F., Flamar A.L., Artis D., Schwartz D.A., Evans C.M., Roberts I.S., Thornton D.J., Grencis R.K. ILC2s mediate systemic innate protection by priming mucus production at distal mucosal sites. J Exp Med. 2019 Oct 3. pii: jem.20180610. doi: 10.1084/jem.20180610. [Epub ahead of print]

Mani V., Bromley S.K., Äijö T., Mora-Buch R., Carrizosa E., Warner R.D., Hamze M., Sen D.R., Chasse A.Y., Lorant A., Griffith J.W., Rahimi R.A., McEntee C.P., Jeffrey K.L., Marangoni F., Travis M.A., Lacy-Hulbert A., Luster A.D., Mempel T.R. Migratory DCs activate TGF-β to precondition naïve CD8+ T cells for tissue-resident memory fate. Science. 2019 Oct 11;366(6462). pii: eaav5728. doi: 10.1126/science.aav5728.

Kolba M.D., Dudka W., Zaręba-Kozioł M., Kominek A., Ronchi P., Turos L., Chroscicki P., Wlodarczyk J., Schwab Y. Klejman A., Cysewski D., Srpan K., Davis D.M., Piwocka K. Tunneling nanotube-mediated intercellular vesicle and protein transfer in the stroma-provided imatinib resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia cells. Cell Death Dis. 2019 Oct 28;10(11):817. doi: 10.1038/s41419-019-2045-8.

Lopez-Castejon G. Control of the inflammasome by the ubiquitin system FEBS J. 2019 Nov 2. doi: 10.1111/febs.15118. [Epub ahead of print]

Grants

Professor Tracy Hussell along with Professors Karl Kadler, Rachel Lennon and Judi Allen and Dr John Grainger were recently awarded a 4 year PhD programme from the Wellcome Trust – Immuno-Matrix in Complex Disease. The first intake of students will be in September 2020

Invited presentations

Karoliina Tuomela from the Davis lab presented her work at the NK cell Congress in Luxembourg.

MCCIR visit GSK

People funded on GSK projects from the MCCIR went down to GSK in Stevenage on the 22^nd October for a scientific workshop. Those working on the projects presented either posters or talks, went on lab tours around GSK, met with old collaborators and others got to meet new GKS collaborators for the first time.

How to write an essay

Professor Dan Davis gave a talk to about 1000 undergraduates, along with crime fiction author Chris Simms, on how to write a good essay.

New Scientist live

Professor Dan Davis spoke about ‘The immune therapy revolution’ at New Scientist Live 2019.

‌MCCIR Bake off - Bonfire themed

‌The cakes have been made, eaten and judged for another year!!! Thank you to everyone who baked, ate and judged – it was a great turn out with lots of impressive baking skills on show. The scores have been added up and the winners are (based on combined presentation and taste scores):

1. Sam Smith – Ginger cake - £20 amazon voucher
2. Sarah Harbach – Bonfire spiced cake - £10 amazon voucher
3. Karoliina Tuomela – Chocolate honeycomb tart – notebook    

WELCOME

Welcome to Dr Rebecca Dookie who has joined the MacDonald lab as a post-doc.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Dr Joanne Konkel on being awarded a Lister Prize.

Congratulations to Conor O’Boyle from the Konkel lab who passed his PhD viva. His thesis was on The immune response to periodontitis and its relevance to cerebral ischaemia and his examiners were Dr Jo Pennock and Dr Shauna Culshaw from Glasgow university.

Congratulations to Freya Svedberg from the MacDonald lab who was awarded the Manchester Doctoral College 'Best Outstanding Output Award’ 2019 (FBMH), for her PhD work that led to her recent  Nature Immunology paper.

PUBLICATIONS

Casulli J., Fife M.E., Houston S.A., Rossi S., Dow J., Williamson E.D., Clark G.C., Hussell T., D'Elia R.V., Travis M.A. CD200R deletion promotes a neutrophil niche for Francisella tularensis and increases infectious burden and mortality. Nat Commun. 2019 May 9;10(1):2121. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-10156-6.

Obieglo K., Costain A., Webb L.M., Ozir-Fazalalikhan A., Brown S.L. MacDonald A.S., Smits H.H. 2019 Type I interferons provide additive signals for murine regulatory B cell induction by Schistosoma mansoni eggs. Eur J Immunol. 2019 May 17. doi: 10.1002/eji.201847858. [Epub ahead of print]

INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Professor Daniel Davis gave a talk at the NIH Immunology Seminar Series, Bethesda, on May 7th.

Professor Tracy Hussell gave the Almroth Wright Lecture at St Mary’s Imperial College on the 14th of May, she talked about  ‘Repair after inflammatory lung disease: a role for stem cells, matrix and neuropeptides’.

Professor Dan Davis, Dr John Grainger and Dr Matt Hepworth presented at the recent Immuno-oncology network meeting at the Christie Hospital on the 21st May. The meeting was aimed at improving collaborative links between clinical oncologists and immunologists.

THE BEAUTIFUL CURE

A new review of Dan’s book appeared on the ASCO Post, the premier USA cancer newsletter and conference organizer. 

ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL

Ahead of Professor Daniel Davis’ appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June, he was interviewed for their blog site on The Endlessly Fascinating Immune System.

BSI: TYPE 2 IMMUNOLOGY MEETING

Drs Peter Cook, Tara Sutherland and Matthew Hepworth are organizing a Type 2 immunology meeting on the 24th of June at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum.  Type 2 immunity is associated with helminth infections and induction of allergic pathology.  However, type 2 immunity is now being recognized as being critical for the control of a broad range of immune contexts. This meeting will provide a platform for presenting the latest insights in this field.

Please register for the meeting at:

https://www.immunology.org/events/type-2-immunology-meeting

Abstract Submission: Abstracts should be submitted electronically until midday on Monday 13th May 2019 to: peter.c.cook@manchester.ac.uk

If you have any questions regarding the guidelines or eligibility then please contact: J.Madsen@soton.ac.uk          

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

PINT OF SCIENCE

Pint of Science (pintofscience.co.uk) is a yearly, world-wide public engagement event in which researchers discuss the science that makes them tick over a drink in pubs across the country. This year Matt Hepworth spoke at the Old Abbey Taphouse in Manchester about the wonderful world of intestinal microbes. Matt discussed some of the exciting, emerging roles for these “good bacteria” with the audience including how your intestinal “microbiota” can determine whether you are fat or thin, effect your mood and prevent allergies. The audience also heard all about how “poo transplants” may help to treat diseases in future and learned about how research in the Hepworth lab is helping us to understand how the immune system acts to keep a healthy, peaceful relationship with our gut bacteria.

Matthew.hepworth@manchester.ac.uk

@Hepworth_Lab  Photo: Megan Chastney (@MeganChastney)

HAY FESTIVAL

Professor Daniel Davis presented at the Hay Festival on Friday the 24th of May on the Royal Society Platform along with Sarah Jayne Blakemore, more information can be found here. Dan also took part in a Q&A session at the festival.

SINGING FOR LUNG HEALTH

The Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation and SHE Choir, Manchester are collaborating to perform at bluedot festival 2019! By creating a completely new workshop called ‘Singing for Lung Health’ they will explore the link between singing and health, with a particular focus on inflammatory lung diseases. The workshop will bring together informative discussions lead by researchers from the Lydia Becker Institute with fun, improvised singing for participants!

SPEAKER’S HOUSE

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell gave a talk on Communicating Science at the Speaker, John Bercow's state apartment, featuring immunology and our work. Available on the BBC iPlayer here.

WELCOME

Welcome to Dr Rita Domingues who has joined the Hepworth lab as a post-doc.

PUBLICATIONS

Ghosh A., Liao A., O'Leary C., Mercer J., Tylee K., Goenka A., Holley R., Jones S.A., Bigger B.W. 2019 Strategies for the Induction of Immune Tolerance to Enzyme Replacement Therapy in Mucopolysaccharidosis Type I. Mol Ther Methods Clin Dev. Mar 2;13:321-333. doi: 10.1016/j.omtm.2019.02.007. eCollection 2019 Jun 14.

Griffiths W.J., Yutuc .E, Abdel-Khalik J., Crick P.J., Hearn T., Dickson A., Bigger B.W., Hoi-Yee Wu T., Goenka A., Ghosh A., Jones S.A., Covey D.F., Ory D.S., Wang Y. 2019 Metabolism of Non-Enzymatically Derived Oxysterols: Clues from sterol metabolic disorders. Free Radic Biol Med. Apr 19;. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 31009661 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Cohen T.S., Takahashi V., Bonnell J., Tovchigrechko A., Chaerkady R., Yu W., Jones-Nelson O., Lee Y., Raja R., Hess S., Stover C.K., Worthington J.J., Travis M.A., Sellman B.R. 2019 Staphylococcus aureus drives expansion of low-density neutrophils in diabetic mice. J Clin Invest. 2019 Apr 15;130. pii: 126938. doi: 10.1172/JCI126938. eCollection  Apr 15

Steel N., Faniyi A.A., Rahman S., Swietlik S., Czajkowska B.I., Chan B.T., Hardgrave A., Steel A., Sparwasser T.D., Assas M.B., Grencis R.K., Travis M.A., Worthington J.J. 2019 TGFβ-activation by dendritic cells drives Th17 induction and intestinal contractility and augments the expulsion of the parasite Trichinella spiralis in mice. PLoS Pathog. Apr 18;15(4):e1007657. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1007657. eCollection 2019 Apr.

Svedberg F.R., Brown S.L., Krauss M.Z., Campbell L., Sharpe C., Clausen M., Howell G.J., Clark H., Madsen J., Evans C.M., Sutherland T.E., Ivens A.C., Thornton D.J., Grencis R.K., Hussell T., Cunoosamy D.M., Cook P.C., MacDonald A.S. 2019 The lung environment controls alveolar macrophage metabolism and responsiveness in type 2 inflammation. Nat Immunol. 2019 Apr 1. doi: 10.1038/s41590-019-0352-y. [Epub ahead of print]

INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Dr Peter Cook gave an invited seminar at Aberdeen University on ‘Deciphering the key innate immune cells that mediate fungal allergic inflammation’

Professor Tracy Hussell presented her labs work at the BSI inflammation conference in Edinburgh, on regulation of lung inflammation post-flu infection

GRANTS

Professor Daniel Davis was Co-I on a successful grant with the BBSRC for purchase of A Lattice Lightsheet Microscope for Imaging Highly Dynmaic Processes in Living Cells and Organisms. £299,614

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Emma Houlder from the MacDonald lab who won second prize at the British Society for Parasitology Spring Meeting here in Manchester, 15th-17th April, for her talk about ‘Elucidating the pulmonary immune response in schistosomiasis’

‌Congratulations to Dr John Stone on being awarded an intermediate fellowship from Kidney Research UK – due to start in September.  £186,954

Congratulations to Dr John Stone on achieving a PB at the London Marathon in a time of 2hours 40 mins!!!

INHALING SUGAR

Professor Andrew MacDonald’s Nature communications paper received a lot of press coverage including the Daily Mirror, Ind ependent, the Sun and Daily Mail.

The article also generated some interesting discussions on how the media reports scientific discoveries.

MATT HEPWORTH: LISTER FELLOWSHIP

Dr Matt Hepworth, was formally presented with his Lister Prize Research Fellowship earlier this month by the Chairman of the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine, Sir Alex Markham, in front of an audience of more than 70 colleagues who came to hear Matt’s inaugural Lister Lecture.

The Institute supports early career independent investigators, and in his lecture Matt talked about how his Lister Prize Research Fellowship is being used to fund research into how bacterial and dietary metabolites fuel the immune response and regulate fundamental aspects of cell biology. The lab is also trying to understand how the immune system establishes a health crosstalk with the commensal bacteria that live in our intestinal tract – and how metabolites and nutrients produced by microbiota and released from the diet conversely influence the immune response.

Commenting on his award Matt said: “The award allows me to take risks as a junior investigator and explore exciting new interdisciplinary avenues of research, while also providing invaluable flexible funding to help me cement my independent laboratory here in Manchester.”

Stephanie Shaw

BSI: TYPE 2 IMMUNOLOGY MEETING

Drs Peter Cook, Tara Sutherland and Matthew Hepworth are organizing a Type 2 immunology meeting on the 24th of June at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum.  Type 2 immunity is associated with helminth infections and induction of allergic pathology.  However, type 2 immunity is now being recognized as being critical for the control of a broad range of immune contexts. This meeting will provide a platform for presenting the latest insights in this field.

Please register for the meeting at:

https://www.immunology.org/events/type-2-immunology-meeting

Abstract Submission:

Abstracts should be submitted electronically until midday on Monday 13th May 2019 to: peter.c.cook@manchester.ac.uk

If you have any questions regarding the guidelines or eligibility then please contact: J.Madsen@soton.ac.uk          

WELCOME

Welcome to Dr Verena Kaestele and Dr Kara Filbey who have joined the Grainger lab as post-docs.

Welcome also to Dr Camille Rey who has joined the Davis lab as a post-doc.

PUBLICATIONS

Ud-Din S., Foden P., Mazhari M., Al-Habba S., Baguneid M., Bulfone-Paus S., McGeorge D., Bayat A. 2019 A double-blind randomized trial demonstrates the role of zonal priming & direct topical application of epigallocatechin-3-gallate in modulation of cutaneous scarring in human skin. J Invest Dermatol. 2019 Feb 26. pii: S0022-202X(19)30134-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jid.2019.01.030. [Epub ahead of print]

Melo-Gonzalez F., Kammoun H., Evren E., Dutton E.E., Papadopoulou M., Bradford B.M., Tanes C., Fardus-Reid F., Swann J.R., Bittinger K., Mabbott N.A., Vallance B.A., Willinger T., Withers D.R., Hepworth M.R. 2019 Antigen-presenting ILC3 regulate T cell-dependent IgA responses to colonic mucosal bacteria. J Exp Med. 2019 Feb 27. pii: jem.20180871. doi: 10.1084/jem.20180871. [Epub ahead of print]

INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Professor Daniel Davis gave a keynote talk at WIRED: HEALTH, a healthcare conference, March 25-26th, held at The Crick in London, featuring Sir Paul Nurse and Dame Sally Davies. 

Professor Daniel Davis gave the closing keynote talk at the NHS Chief Scientific Officer’s conference in London, March 7-8th, chaired by Dame Sue Hill.

Dr Amy Saunders gave a seminar titled, “Regulation of the skin immune system and inflammatory disease” at Salford University on the 27th of March

Professor Andrew MacDonald gave invited talk at St. George’s, University of London, on the 27th March about 'Dendritic cells and macrophages in promotion and regulation of inflammation

GRANTS

BBSRC Impact Acceleration Account, "Method for Manufacturing the Next Generation of Smart Human Growth Factors with Controllable Activities'. Mark Travis (PI) and Anil Day (co-PI) with Protein Technologies Ltd = £14,671.

MCCIR IN THE PRESS

Professor Dan Davis wrote a piece for Wired on why the immune system is key in the fight against cancer. The article can be found here.

MCCIR VISITS GSK

The MCCIR visited GSK in Stevenage on the 6th of March. Those on GSK funded projects gave update presentations, all of which were thought to be of excellent quality and all of which invoked collaborative discussions.  The day ended with everyone feeling enthusiastic about the scientific collaboration and the future direction of the projects.

THE BEAUTIFUL CURE

Professor Dan Davis’s book, The Beautiful Cure, was reviewed in The New York Review of Books.

THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR IMMUNOLOGY’S: TYPE 2 IMMUNOLOGY MEETING

Drs Peter Cook, Tara Sutherland and Matthew Hepworth are organizing a Type 2 immunology meeting on the 24th of June at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum.  Type 2 immunity is associated with helminth infections and induction of allergic pathology.

However, type 2 immunity is now being recognized as being critical for the control of a broad range of immune contexts. This meeting will provide a platform for presenting the latest insights in this field.

Please register for the meeting at:

https://www.immunology.org/events/type-2-immunology-meeting

Abstract Submission:

Abstracts should be submitted electronically until midday on Monday 13th May 2019 to: peter.c.cook@manchester.ac.uk

If you have any questions regarding the guidelines or eligibility then please contact: J.Madsen@soton.ac.uk           

PUBLICATIONS

Torbica T., Wicks K., Umehara T., Gungordu L., Alrdahe S., Wemyss K., Grainger J.R., Mace K.A. 2019 Chronic inflammation in response to injury: retention of myeloid cells in injured tissue is driven by myeloid cell-intrinsic factors. J Invest Dermatol. 2019 Jan 28. pii: S0022-202X(19)30038-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jid.2018.12.030. [Epub ahead of print]

Martínez-López M., Iborra S., Conde-Garrosa R., Mastrangelo A., Danne C., Mann E.R., Reid D.M., Gaboriau-Routhiau V., Chaparro M., Lorenzo M.P., Minnerup L., Saz-Leal P., Slack E., Kemp B., Gisbert J.P., Dzionek A., Robinson M.J., Rupérez F.J., Cerf-Bensussan N., Brown G.D., Bernardo D., LeibundGut-Landmann S., Sancho D  2018 Microbiota Sensing by Mincle-Syk Axis in Dendritic Cells Regulates Interleukin-17 and -22 Production and Promotes Intestinal Barrier Integrity. Immunity. 2019 Jan 21. pii: S1074-7613(18)30568-5. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2018.12.020. [Epub ahead of print]

Labram B., Namvar S., Hussell T., Herrick S.E. 2018 Endothelin-1 mediates Aspergillus fumigatus induced airway inflammation and remodelling. Clin Exp Allergy. 2019 Feb 8. doi: 10.1111/cea.13367. [Epub ahead of print]

Kennedy P.R., Barthen C., Williamson D.J., Davis D.M. 2018HLA-B and HLA-C Differ in Their Nanoscale Organization at Cell Surfaces. Front Immunol. 2019 Jan 29;10:61. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.00061. eCollection 2019.

Zhang Z., Hunter L., Wu G., Maidstone R., Mizoro Y., Vonslow R., Fife M., Hopwood T., Begley N., Saer B., Wang P., Cunningham P., Baxter M., Durrington H., Blaikley J.F., Hussell T., Rattray M., Hogenesch J.B., Gibbs J., Ray D.W., Loudon A.S. 2018 Genome-wide effect of pulmonary airway epithelial cell-specific Bmal1 deletion. FASEB J. 2019 Feb 22:fj201801682R. doi: 10.1096/fj.201801682R. [Epub ahead of print]

O'Boyle C., Haley M.J., Lemarchand E., Smith C.J., Allan S.M., Konkel J.E., Lawrence C.B. 2018 Ligature-induced periodontitis induces systemic inflammation but does not alter acute outcome after stroke in mice. Int J Stroke. 2019 Feb 22:1747493019834191. doi: 10.1177/1747493019834191. [Epub ahead of print]

‌

INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Prof  Andrew MacDonald was an invited plenary speaker at the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) Winter School in Trysil, Norway (Jan 24-27).

Dr Peter Cook attended a meeting on Type 2 Immunity in Homeostasis and Disease in Bruges, Belgium and presented a poster titled: Single cell approaches reveal the key dendritic cell subsets that coordinate allergic airway inflammation against the fungal allergen Aspergillus fumigatus.

Prof Andrew MacDonald was a keynote speaker at the joint Edinburgh and West of Scotland Immunology Group Symposium 2019 in Linlithgow on the 7th Feb, where he talked about ‘Environmental control of pulmonary macrophage responsiveness during type 2 inflammation’.

GRANTS

Prof Mark Travis has been awarded a DTRA grant to look at Harnessing natural regulators to combat anti-microbial resistance. £253, 816

Prof Silvia Bulfone Paus is Co-I on a successful MRC DPFS grant with Imperial College London which looks at Improved diagnostics in food allergy (ID-in-FA) Study. £362,568

Prof Silvia Bulfone Paus is also Co-I on a successful grant from the JP Moulton Charitable Foundation. “Can cat allergic asthmatics still live with their cat: a Feasibility Study.” Funding is about £551 893.

PUBLICATIONS

Morgan D.J., Casulli J., Chew C., Connolly E., Lui S., Brand O.J., Rahman R., Jagger C., Hussell T. 2018 Innate Immune Cell Suppression and the Link With Secondary Lung Bacterial Pneumonia. Front Immunol. 2018 Dec 14;9:2943. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2018.02943. eCollection 2018.

Costain A.H., MacDonald A.S., Smits H.H. 2018 Schistosome Egg Migration: Mechanisms, Pathogenesis and Host Immune Responses. Front Immunol. 2018 Dec 20;9:3042. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2018.03042. eCollection 2018.

Colucci R., Pellegrini C., Fornai M., Tirotta E., Antonioli L., Renzulli C., Ghelardi E., Piccoli E., Gentile D., Benvenuti L., Natale G., Fulceri F., Palazón-Riquelme P., López-Castejón G., Blandizzi C., Scarpignato C.. 2018 Pathophysiology of NSAID-Associated Intestinal Lesions in the Rat: Luminal Bacteria and Mucosal Inflammation as Targets for Prevention. Front Pharmacol. 2018 Nov 29;9:1340. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.01340. eCollection 2018.

Wilcock A., Bahri R., Bulfone-Paus S., Arkwright P.D.. Mast cell disorders: From infancy to maturity. Allergy. 2018 Nov 3. doi: 10.1111/all.13657. [Epub ahead of print]

INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Dr Peter Cook gave a presentation at a Gordon research conference on the Immunology of Fungal Infections inGalveston USA on ‘Deciphering the Key Innate Immune Cells that Trigger and Sustain Fungal Allergic Inflammation’

‌Dr Amy Saunders attended (and was granted a travel award to attend) the 3rd Inflammatory Skin Disease Summit, Dec 12-15th in Vienna. Amy presented a poster, "Reduced cutaneous CD200R1 signalling exacerbates inflammatory responses in psoriatic skin”‌

Both Dr Sam Smith and Dr Pippa Kennedy from the Davis lab presented their work on NK cells at the 2019 UK Natural Killer Cells Workshop on the 11^th of Jan 2019.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Daniel Freidman from the Davis lab who passed his PhD viva. His examiners were Professor Andrew Macdonald and Professor Fiona Culley from Imperial College London. His thesis was entitled ‘The impact of substrate stiffness of NK cell cytotoxicity’.

Congratulations to Dr Tovah Shaw who has been awarded a BBSRC Discovery fellowship allowing her to undertake her own research in John’s lab and gain leadership skills. The award supports the transition of early stage researchers to fully independent research leaders.

‌Congratulations to Rufus Daw from the Grainger lab who won first prize for his poster on ‘Determining the impact of gastrointestinal nematode infection on liver immune function’ at the SBS annual event 2019.

MCCIR IN THE PRESS

Professor Daniel Davis was quote in the Daily Mail on the 19th of January discussing why some people never catch a cold. The article can be found here.

DOUBLE HELIX HISTORY SHOWCASE

‌Pippa Kennedy, Susanne Dechantsreiter, and Karoliina Tuomela from the Davis Lab took part in the Double Helix History Showcase at the Science and Industry Museum on Saturday, January 19th. The showcase invited visitors to think about the role that genetics plays in their identity. The title of the Davis Lab’s stall was “Does diversity make us stronger?”, which looked at how diversity in our KIR genes makes our immune systems unique and strong against a variety of diseases. Children had the chance to make bead bracelets that represented KIR haplotypes, while their parents admired videos showing super-resolution microscopy and NK cell killing of cancer cells. With the poster “Meet the scientist” they also presented their own research and gave an impression of how it is to be a scientist.  

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES REVIEW

Dr Tara Sutherland has written an article for the Biological Sciences Review on Do our immune cells shape asthma severity. The magazine is aimed at A level, and Scottish Highers students and used as a resource by both students and teachers.

PUBLICATIONS

Jones G.R., Bain C.C., FentonT.M.,  Kelly A., Brown S.L., Ivens A.C., Travis M.A., Cook P.C., and MacDonald A.S., Dynamics of Colon Monocyte and Macrophage Activation During Colitis Front. Immunol., 27 November 2018 https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2018.02764

Sutherland T.E., Rückerl D., Logan N., Duncan S., Wynn T.A., Allen J.E. Ym1 induces RELMα and rescues IL-4Rα deficiency in lung repair during nematode infection. PLoS Pathog. 2018 Nov 30;14(11):e1007423. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1007423.

INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Matt Hepworth gave a talk at the Innate Lymphoid Cell (ILC) meeting in Tokyo, a seminar at the RIKEN institute in Yokohama and spoke at the London Immunology group BSI symposium on Immunological Cross-talk

GRANTS

Professor Tracy Hussell has been awarded a VAccine deveLopment for complex Intracellular neglected pATogEns (VALIDATE) - Overcoming innate immune tolerance in the respiratory tract for optimal for £7400

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Ben Mulhearn, Ellie Shuttleworth and Anu Goenka who all graduated with a PhD on the 19^th of December 2018.

THE BEAUTIFUL CURE

The Beautiful Cure was a Book of the Year in the TIMES, TELEGRAPH and NEW SCIENTIST. In the USA, the book was recently reviewed in the Wall Street Journal.

BILL BRYSON VISITS THE DAVIS LAB

The hugely popular author BILL BRYSON (Notes from a Small Island; A Short History of Nearly Everything, One Summer) visited Prof. Dan Davis’s lab. He spoke with Dan about the immune system and writing, and spent some time with postdocs and students in Dan’s lab.

PUBLICATIONS

Krishnan S., Prise I.E., Wemyss K., Schenck L.P., Bridgeman H.M., McClure F.A., Zangerle-Murray T., O'Boyle C., Barbera T.A., Mahmood F., Bowdish D.M.E., Zaiss D.M.W., Grainger J.R., Konkel J.E.2018 Amphiregulin-producing γδ T cells are vital for safeguarding oral barrier immune homeostasis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Oct 16;115(42):10738-10743. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1802320115. Epub 2018 Oct 2.

INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Dr Matthew Hepworth gave a talk on his lab’s work at the Cytokine Society Conference in October in Boston. Professor Mark Travis and Dr Lizzie Mann also

presented posters at this conference.

CONGRATULATIONS

‌Congratulations to Dr Anu Goenka on passing his PhD Viva. His thesis was entitled ‘Regulation of phagocyte immunity: genes, age and microbes’ and his examiners were Mark Travis and Nigel Klein from UCL.

Congratulations to Dr Ellie Shuttleworth who passed her PhD viva. Her thesis was entitled "The role of integrin alphav beta8 on human monocytes and macrophages in intestinal immune homeostasis". External examiner was Prof. Neil Henderson (University of Edinburgh), internal examiner was Richard Grencis. 

‌Congratulations to Sarah Harbach from the Hussell lab who attended the NIHR Academy Conference in Leeds (20th-21st Nov) and submitted a poster entitled ‘DiagNOSEis: Early Detection of Lung Cancer’, and was one of 5 people to win a poster prize.

‌Congratulations also to the following prize winners from the October 2018 DIIRM postgraduate showcase:

1st prize Oral clinical presentation: Emma Houlder“The regulation of allergic airway inflammation by Tregs and Dendritic Cells”

1st prize clinical poster presentation: Alicia Galdon “Defining the immunomodulatory effects of IMM-101: a promising, novel co-therapy for cancer”

1st prize non clinical poster presentation: Joshua Dow “Determining the role of Innate Lymphoid Cells during Bacterial Infection”

IMMUNOTHERAPY AND NUT ALLERGY

‌Professor Dan Davis was quoted in the Times discussing allergies and the lack of understanding of how immune tolerance normally works

‌MARTIN PARR: RETURN TO MANCHESTER

Internationally renowned photographer Martin Parr visited Dan Davis’s laboratory while shooting for his new exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. The exhibition looks at Manchester life, past and present and includes several pictures taken in Davis’s lab. The exhibition runs in central Manchester until April 22nd 2019.

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO’S FRESH AIR

Professor Dan Davis talked about his book, The Beautiful Cure, on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air - listened to by 5 million across the USA. The interview can be found here.

60 SECONDS WITH PROFESSOR TRACY HUSSELL

Professor Tracy Hussell recently did ’60 seconds with’ interview for FBMH news. To find out about Tracy’s guilty pleasures and biggest regret please the bmh blog

GREEN CORNER:

SILVER AWARD

‌At the recent green impact award the MCCIR team was awarded Silver! Well done to Sam, Silvia, Ben, Ashley, Rajia, Karen, Karishma, Poppy, and Sue on all their hard work.

If you would like to get involved next year please contact Fiona.

Welcome

Welcome to:

Dr Khodor Hazime who has joined the Davis lab as a post-doc.

Dr Stefanie Fischer who has joined the Hussell group as a visiting scientist joint with the MCRC.

Stefani Valma who has started her PhD with the Hussell group and the Dr Sebastien Viatte.

Rebecca Cahill who has joined the MCCIR and the Becker Institute as admin support.

Publications

Scott N.A., Andrusaite A., Andersen P., Lawson M., Alcon-Giner C., Leclaire C., Caim S., Le Gall G., Shaw T., Connolly J.P.R., Roe A.J., Wessel H., Bravo-Blas A., Thomson C.A., Kästele V., Wang P., Peterson D.A., Bancroft A., Li X., Grencis R., Mowat A.M., Hall L.J., Travis M.A., Milling S.W.F., Mann E.R. 2018 Antibiotics induce sustained dysregulation of intestinal T cell immunity by perturbing macrophage homeostasis. Sci Transl Med. 2018 Oct 24;10(464). pii: eaao4755. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aao4755.

Kelly A., Gunaltay S., McEntee C.P., Shuttleworth E.E., Smedley C., Houston S.A., Fenton T.M., Levison S., Mann E.R., Travis M.A. 2018 Human monocytes and macrophages regulate immune tolerance via integrin αvβ8-mediated TGFβ activation. J Exp Med. 2018 Oct 24. pii: jem.20171491. doi: 10.1084/jem.20171491. [Epub ahead of print]

Pilkington S.M., Barron M.J., Watson R.E.B., Griffiths C.E.M., Bulfone-Paus S.. 2018 Aged human skin accumulates mast cells with altered functionality which localise to macrophage and VIP+ nerve fibres. Br J Dermatol. 2018 Oct 6. doi: 10.1111/bjd.17268. [Epub ahead of print]

Grants

Dr Joanne Konkel is a Co-I on a successful MRC grant to investigate The Microbiome Drives Circadian Rhythms in Inflammation. £612,252

Invited presentations

Professor Silvia Bulfone Paus presented her work at the "Translational biology and pathology of mast cells" conference Oct 12-13 in Miami, Florida.

The Royal Society Book Prize

Professor Dan Davis’ book, The Beautiful Cure was shortlisted for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize. Dan attended the award ceremony on the 2 October 2018.

Launch of the Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation

Colleagues from across the Faculty celebrated the launch of the new Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation on 18 October 2018 at an all day event held at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum.

The University’s President and Vice Chancellor, Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell opened the event, which was also attended by eminent immunologists Dame Bridget Ogilvie and Professor Mark Feldman, and Professor Graham Lord who will join the University as Vice President and Dean of FBMH in early 2019. In addition colleagues from GSK, the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and the University of Madrid attended.

Guests enjoyed a series of talks and poster presentations from members of the Institute that illustrated the breadth of immunology research taking place at the University. In the afternoon, Professor Dan Davis, author of ‘The Beautiful Cure’ delivered the inaugural Inflammatory Remarks Seminar before the event closed with a drinks reception.

Director of the Institute, Professor Tracy Hussell commented: "The day could not have gone better. You could feel the collegiality and excitement for this Institute.

The format of the branches has really garnered innovative collaborative research and we are already making huge progress in cancer and neuroimmunology."

The new Institute will provide an opportunity for some of the world’s leading scientists to transfer their fundamental immunology and inflammation research into areas of great clinical unmet need, including mental health, healthy ageing, obesity, pregnancy and infection outcome, as well as major diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.

The Institute is named after Lydia Ernestine Becker, a celebrated natural scientist and women’s suffragist, who believed strongly that women are intellectually equal to men and promoted their inclusion in science.

Social responsibility

Science Spectacular

The Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation along with the MCCIR presented ‘Inflammation: the good and the bad’ at the Science Spectacular event held at the University of Manchester.  Science Spectacular is a family friendly event with numerous displays about scientific research taking place across the university.  We shared ideas about good and bad bacteria via interactive guessing games and model making using playdough.  To show how the immune system then distinguishes between good and bad bacteria was explained via toy ducks in a duck pond.  The toy ducks were either good or bad bacteria and it was then a race to beat the clock as children (and some adults) pretended to be immune cells hunting out the ducks that didn’t have a letter. Children were then encouraged to beat the flu virus by throwing white blood cells at a huge poster of a flu virus!

Green corner

Halloween Bake Off

A huge thank you to all those who baked, ate and judged!!!

We raised an amazing £54 for the PKD charity.

The winner of the bake off was Sam Smith with her incredible minion cake!! An honourable mention must also go to Sarah Harbach for her toffee apple cake which came a close second.

Welcome

Welcome to: 

Dr Orsolya Kiss has joined Bulfone Paus group in August.

Lucy Buckingham who has started her PhD in the Saunders lab.

Louise Fraser and Anna Gritsenko who have started their PhDs in the Lopez-Castejon lab.

Sarah Harbach and Halima Ali Shuwa who have started their PhDs in the Hussell lab.

Elisabeth Kent and Ryan Hodgetts who have started their PhDs in the Travis / Mann labs.

Flora McClure who is returning as a PhD student in the Konkel / Grainger lab.

Publications

Palazon-Riquelme P., Lopez-Castejon G. 2018 The inflammasomes, immune guardians at defence barriers. Immunology. 2018 Aug 11. doi: 10.1111/imm.12989. [Epub ahead of print]

Jenkins T.P., Peachey L.E., Ajami N.J., MacDonald A.S., Hsieh M.H., Brindley P.J., Cantacessi C., Rinaldi G.. 2018 Schistosoma mansoni infection is associated with quantitative and qualitative modifications of the mammalian intestinal microbiota. Sci Rep. 2018 Aug 13;8(1):12072. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-30412-x.

Walwyn-Brown K., Guldevall K., Saeed M., Pende D., Önfelt B., MacDonald A.S., Davis D.M. 2018 Human NK Cells Lyse Th2-Polarizing Dendritic Cells via NKp30 and DNAM-1. J Immunol. 2018 Oct 1;201(7):2028-2041. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1800475. Epub 2018 Aug 17.

Goenka A., Casulli J., Hussell T.. 2018 Mycobacterium tuberculosis Joyrides Alveolar Macrophages into the Pulmonary Interstitium. Cell Host Microbe. 2018 Sep 12;24(3):331-333. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2018.08.011.

Palazón-Riquelme P., Worboys J.D., Green J., Valera A., Martín-Sánchez F., Pellegrini C., Brough D., López-Castejón G. USP7 and USP47 deubiquitinases regulate NLRP3 inflammasome activation. EMBO Rep. 2018 Sep 11. pii: e44766. doi: 10.15252/embr.201744766. [Epub ahead of print]

Green J.P., Yu S., Martín-Sánchez F., Pelegrin P., Lopez-Castejon G., Lawrence C.B., Brough D. 2018 Chloride regulates dynamic NLRP3-dependent ASC oligomerization and inflammasome priming. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Sep 19. pii: 201812744. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1812744115. [Epub ahead of print]

Congratulations

Congratulations to Ben Mulhearn from the Hussell lab who passed his PhD viva. His thesis was on Identifying immune biomarkers to predict treatment response to biologic drugs in rheumatoid arthritis and his examiners were Dr. Amy Anderson (University of Newcastle) and Dr. Hector Chinoy.

Grants

Professor Silvia Bulfone-Paus was awarded a collaborative MRC funded project with Imperial and will receive a  sub-contract for 20K to perform the mast cell activation assay on selected patients samples.

Invited presentations

Professor Andrew MacDonald gave invited talks at the University of Birmingham (14th Sep) and in Liege (24th Sep) on environmental control of pulmonary macrophage activation during type-2 inflammation.

Emma Houlder, Amanda Ridley and Alicia Galdon are attending the the European Macrophage and Dendritic Cell Society annual conference in Verona (27th-29th Sep), where they will all be presenting posters on their research.

UK Research and innovation

Professor Tracy Hussell was appointed as a member of the UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships (UKRI FLF) programme Peer Review College (PRC).

Welcome

Welcome to: 

Georgia Sweetland who is doing her masters in the Bulfone-Paus group and to Lutfullah Rowaichi who is doing his Masters in the Hussell group.

Gemma Radley who is doing a post-doc with Tracy Hussell and Sebastien Viatte. And to Miriam Franklin who has started her PhD in the Hussell group.

Fatima Martin Sanchez who has returned to the Lopez-Castejon lab, this time as a research assistant.

Publications

Srpan K., Ambrose A., Karampatzakis A., Saeed M., Cartwright A.N.R., Guldevall K., De Matos G.D.S.C., Önfelt B., Davis DM. 2018 Shedding of CD16 disassembles the NK cell immune synapse and boosts serial engagement of target cells. J Cell Biol.  Jul 2. pii: jcb.201712085. doi: 10.1083/jcb.201712085. [Epub ahead of print]

Hussell T., Lui S., Jagger C., Morgan D., Brand O.. 2018 The consequence of matrix dysfunction on lung immunity and the microbiome in COPD. Eur Respir Rev. Jun 27;27(148). pii: 180032. doi: 10.1183/16000617.0032-2018. Print 2018 Jun 30.

Bell T.J., Brand O.J., Morgan D.J., Salek-Ardakani S., Jagger C., Fujimori T., Cholewa L., Tilakaratna V., Östling J., Thomas M., Day A.J., Snelgrove R.J., Hussell T. 2018 Defective lung function following influenza virus is due to prolonged, reversible hyaluronan synthesis. Matrix Biol. 2018 Jun 20. pii: S0945-053X(18)30145-8. doi: 10.1016/j.matbio.2018.06.006. [Epub ahead of print]

Congratulations

Congratulations to:

Triin Major from the Fildes lab who passed her PhD viva on the 28th June. Her thesis was on 'The involvement of the NLRP3 inflammasome in donor lung injury’ and her examiners were Dr David Brough and Prof Trygve Sjöberg.

Alex Ball from the Fildes lab who also passed her PhD viva. Her thesis was on ‘Understanding Reperfusion and the Donor and Recipient Immune Response In Lung Transplantation’ and her examiners were Professor Stephen Clark from Newcastle University and Dr Mo Al-Aloul.

Invited presentations

James Fildes gave a talk to the NC3Rs at their headquarters in the Wellcome Trust, explaining how perfusion can be used to replace large animals in research. 

Tim Entwistle and Kavit Amin gave talks at the Transplantation Society Meeting in Madrid. Tim presented the outcome of his 12 month trial demonstrating that Mediterranean and low fat diets reverse cardiometabolic risk factors in heart and lung transplant recipients, and Kavit presented his work demonstrating that ex-vivo limb perfusion is achievable for transplantation and replantation. Kavit has also spent two weeks at the Bogenhausen hospital in Munich working with Professor Milomir Ninkovic, who was involved in the first bilateral hand transplants performed in 2000. 

The Fildes team spent a week at the Igelosa Lifescience Institute in Sweden developing a new protocol for ex-vivo lung perfusion that they aim to test in a multinational clinical trial.

Andrew MacDonald was an invited speaker in Germany at The University of Wurzburg (4th June) and Erlangen University (5th June), and at the Wessex Immunology Group Annual meeting in Southampton (26th June).  He talked about dendritic cells and macrophages in promotion and regulation of type 2 inflammation, and environmental control of pulmonary macrophages.

MCCIR in the press

Professor Daniel Davis was quoted in the The Telegraph regarding the news report that the BCG vaccine can reverse type I diabetes.

Social responsibility

Marlborough Road Academy

On Wednesday 27th June Gloria Lopez-Castejon attended a careers aspiration day at  Marlborough Road Academy (Manchester) where the school children (aged 8/9) had the opportunity to find out about different careers and professions. There she explained what being a scientist is and that not all scientists explore the planets and the universe!

Latitude and Blue Dot Festivals 2018

Professor Daniel Davis joined a panel discussion at the Latitude Festival on ‘The Future of Healthcare’ with Profs. Greg Hannon, Karen Rodham, and comedian Robin Ince. Dan also  presented The Beautiful Cure on the Mission Control stage at Bluedot Festival Sunday 22nd July 2018.

Infinite Monkey Cage

Professor Daniel Davis was in an episode of Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox and Robin Ince, on the immune system, broadcast on Monday July 30th and now available on iplayer 

Green corner

Grow your own tomato plant and cook off

The winners of the grow you own tomato plant competitions have been announced:

Plant with the most tomatoes: Chris Jagger

Biggest Tomato Plant: Poppy Simmonds

Wooden spoon Prize: Kirsty Heydon.

Best Tomato based dish: Rajia Bahri for her goats cheese and tomato tart.

MCCIR Green impact walk

The tree trail walk on the 4th of July was a great success with lots of people coming out to enjoy the nice weather and learn about some on the trees on campus – more interesting than it may sound due to the great tree trail interactive map!

Welcome

Welcome to:

Jennifer Baron who is the flow cytometry technician working with Gareth Howell.

Dr Helen Parker who has joined the MacDonald lab as a post-doc.

JingYuan Xu who is undertaking her PhD with Silvia Bulfone Paus.

Max Valaya who is a visiting Erasmus student with the Bulfone-Paus group.

Saba Khan who is a technician working with Dr Peter Cook.

Somaia Alsafi, Elizabeth Kent and Sakinah Almustafa who are undertaking their Masters with the MacDonald, Cook and Saunders labs respectively.

Publications

Tordo J., O'Leary C., Antunes A.S.L.M., Palomar N., Aldrin-Kirk P., Basche M., Bennett A., D'Souza Z., Gleitz H., Godwin A., Holley R.J., Parker H., Liao A.Y., Rouse P., Youshani A.S., Dridi L., Martins C., Levade T. Stacey .KB., Davis D.M., Dyer A., Clément N., Björklund T., Ali R.R., Agbandje-McKenna M., Rahim A.A., Pshezhetsky A., Waddington S.N., Linden R.M., Bigger B.W., Henckaerts E. 2018 A novel adeno-associated virus capsid with enhanced neurotropism corrects a lysosomal transmembrane enzyme deficiency. Brain. 2018 May 16. doi: 10.1093/brain/awy126. [Epub ahead of print]

Shaw T.N., Houston S.A., Wemyss K., Bridgeman H.M., Barbera T.A., Zangerle-Murray T., Strangward P., Ridley A.J.L., Wang P., Tamoutounour S., Allen J.E., Konkel J.E., Grainger J.R. 2018 Tissue-resident macrophages in the intestine are long lived and defined by Tim-4 and CD4 expression. J Exp Med. 2018 Jun 4;215(6):1507-1518. doi: 10.1084/jem.20180019. Epub 2018 May 22.

Davis D.M. 2018 How studying the immune system leads us to new medicines. Lancet. 2018 Jun 2;391(10136):2205-2206. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31166-8. Epub 2018 May 24.

Villeneuve D.L., Landesmann B., Allavena P., Ashley N., Bal-Price A., Corsini E., Halappanavar S., Hussell T., Laskin D., Lawrence T., Nikolic-Paterson D., Pallardy M., Paini A., Pieters R., Roth R., Tschudi-Monnet F. 2018 Representing the Process of Inflammation as Key Events in Adverse Outcome Pathways. Toxicol Sci. 2018 Jun 1;163(2):346-352. doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfy047.

Jadkauskaite L., Bahri R., Farjo N., Farjo B., Jenkins G., Bhogal R., Haslam I., Bulfone-Paus S., Paus R.. 2018 Nrf2 pathway modulates Substance P-induced human mast cell activation and degranulation in the hair follicle. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2018 May 30. pii: S0091-6749(18)30777-2. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2018.04.039. [Epub ahead of print]

Fletcher H.A., Chatterjee M., Cooper A., Hussell T., Kaye P.M., Prior J., Reljic R., Vermaak S., Vordermeier M., Williams A., McShane H. 2018 VALIDATE: Exploiting the synergy between complex intracellular pathogens to expedite vaccine research and development for tuberculosis, leishmaniasis, melioidosis and leprosy. F1000Res. 2018 Apr 23;7:485. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.14386.1. eCollection 2018.

Dunning J., Blankley S., Hoang L.T., Cox M., Graham C.M., James P.L., Bloom C.I., Chaussabel D., Banchereau J. Brett S.J.; MOSAIC Investigators, Moffatt M.F., O'Garra A., Openshaw P.J.M. 2018 Progression of whole-blood transcriptional signatures from interferon-induced to neutrophil-associated patterns in severe influenza. Nat Immunol. 2018 Jun;19(6):625-635. doi: 10.1038/s41590-018-0111-5. Epub 2018

Congratulations

Congratulations to:

Dr Matthew Hepworth who was recently awarded the prestigious Lister Institute Research prize.

Dr Gloria Lopez-Castejon who was awarded a pump priming award from the Faculty to study phosphor-signaling pathways induced by the danger signal ATP in macrophages.

Professor Silvia Bulfone Paus who was recently awarded an Investing in Success 2019 Philanthropy Matters grant.

Tovah Shaw who won best poster prize at the recent DIIRM Away Day.

Joshua Casulli from the Travis lab who passed his PhD viva on Determining important pulmonary regulators of immunity to the bacterium Francisella tularensis His examiners were Adam Cunningham (University of Birmingham) and Amy Saunders.

Invited presentations

Professor Daniel Davis was invited to give a presentation at the NK2018 conference in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

The Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation

Professors Nigel Hooper and Tracy Hussell recently announced that the University of Manchester Research Institute (UMRI) approved the establishment of a new Institute to be based in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health (FBMH).

The full announcement can be found here.

The Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation, named after Manchester-born Lydia Ernestine Becker, a celebrated natural scientist and a leader in the early British suffrage movement, will carry out fundamental research into all aspects of immunology.

The Becker Institute is structured around nine ‘branches’ of research, as illustrated in the schematic diagram. The executive committee comprises the Institute Director (interim Director Professor Tracy Hussell), two Clinical Co-directors (Professor Christopher Griffiths and TBC) and an Institute Manager (Dr Fiona Foster), plus the research branch leads, who have been appointed based on their significant contribution to their area of expertise. The MCCIR sits as a centre of excellence within the new institute.

The Hay Festival

Professor Daniel Davis gave the 2018 John Maddox Lecture at the Hay Festival. He discussed his book The Beautiful Cure and how immunology leads us to new medicines.

Medicines derived from the immune system

Professor Daniel Davis has been quoted in The Times discussing the importance of exploiting the immune system in the development of new medicines in light of the recent discovery of that viperin, a molecule made by the immune system can stop viruses replicating.

GSK visit the MCCIR

On the 8th June GSK came to the MCCIR for a scientific workshop. The day allowed GSK collaborators to catch up on the progress of the all the GSK projects going on here at the MCCIR. There was also a career’s session where many myths about working for industry were busted with our industrial collaborators talking about their backgrounds and their routes in industry and what their day –to-day life in industry is like.

Social responsibility

MCCIR research activity station

The MCCIR is after new ideas to incorporate into the Inflammation: the good and bad research activity station that we have used at a number of public engagement events in recent years. If you have any ideas please let Fiona know so that we can get them organized before the next big event.

Green corner

The MCCIR green impact team has been awarded a bronze award for 2016/2017 in recognition of all the hard work the team did. Well done to everyone involved.

Welcome

Welcome to Dr Marc Pirson who is a visiting scientist in the Lopez-Castejon lab.

Welcome also to Dr Mehwish Younas who is a post-doc in the Grainger lab.

Welcome also to the new Master’s students, Katie McComb in the MacDonald lab and Amber Michalk in the Sutherland lab.

Welcome to Daisy Harrison and Catia Goncalves who are Wellcome Trust PhD rotation students in the Grainger lab.

Welcome to Max Valayer who is a visiting Erasmus student in the Bulfone-Paus lab.

Publications

Penny H.A., Hodge S.H., Hepworth M.R. 2018 Orchestration of intestinal homeostasis and tolerance by group 3 innate lymphoid cells. Semin Immunopathol.  May 8. doi: 10.1007/s00281-018-0687-8. [Epub ahead of print]

Yu K. Youshani A.S., Wilkinson F.L., O'Leary C., Cook P., Laaniste L., Liao A., Mosses D., Waugh C., Shorrock H., Pathmanaban O., MacDonald A, Kamaly-Asl I., Roncaroli F., Bigger B.W. 2018 A non-myeloablative chimeric mouse model accurately defines microglia and macrophage contribution in glioma. Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol.  Apr 20. doi: 10.1111/nan.12489. [Epub ahead of print]

Kelly A., Grabiec A.M., Travis M.A. 2018 Culture of Human Monocyte-Derived Macrophages. Methods Mol Biol. 2018;1784:1-11. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7837-3_1.

Invited Presentations

Professor Andrew MacDonald was an invited speaker at the 13th Congres Francophone d’Allergologie in Paris (17th April), where he spoke about environmental control of pulmonary macrophage responsiveness during type 2 inflammation. 

 Dr Mark Travis presented on the 'Regulation of mucosal immune responses by integrins and TGF-beta' at GSK in Stevenage on 24th April, Medimmune in Cambridge on 1st May, and Queen's University, Belfast on 8th May.

The Beautiful Cure

Professor Daniel Davis recorded a podcast with TV presenter Tim Lovejoy (Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch) about Dan’s book The Beautiful Cure. The podcast can be found here.

Asthma UK visit the MCCIR

On the 11th April, 3 trustees/investors and 2 staff members of Asthma UK visited to find about Dr Tara Sutherland’s research. Tara is funded by Asthma UK and the Medical Research Foundation. They were given a tour of the flow cytometry facility with Gareth Howell and the Bio-imaging suite with Roger Meadows, followed by a presentation about Tara’s research. Both the presentation and tour were well received and feedback from investors was very positive.

Professor Hussell visits Malawi

Professor Tracy Hussell recently visited Malawi as part of the scientific advisory board for Malawi –Liverpool Wellcome Trust centre.  Tracy had a tour of the main hospital in Blantyre and was shocked by the conditions within which seriously ill patients were treated – with 3 patients to a bed and 3 underneath and a lack of basic medical supplies.  Tracy was struck by the contrast between the hospital and the scientific facilities which were well resourced.  Tracy has provided photos of the Wellcome Trust Centre and the local market place.

Social Responsibility

On the 14-16th May saw the return of the Pint of Science festival to Manchester. Pint of Science is an international event that invites academics to share their research to the public in their local pubs. Alicia Galdon was one of this year’s event coordinators, and hosted Dr Mark Travis and Prof Sheena Cruickshank in a sold out night of parasites and gut immunology at the Abel Haywood pub. Both talks were extremely well received by the audience, with Mark revealing the answer to ‘why don’t we all have inflammatory bowel disease’ along with ‘should we all be drinking Yakult?’ and Sheena shocking the crowd with in introduction into the weird and wonderful world of parasite manipulation of behaviour - complete with 3D glasses!

Welcome

Welcome to Daisy Harrison and Catia Goncalves who have joined the Grainger lab for one of their Wellcome Trust PhD rotations.

Welcome also to Amber Michalk, Katie McComb and Mariam Abdulrahman who are doing their Master’s degrees in the Sutherland, MacDonald and Bulfone-Paus labs respectively.

Publications

Melo-Gonzalez F., Fenton T.M., Forss C., Smedley C., Goenka A., MacDonald A.S., Thornton D.J., Travis M.A.  2018 Intestinal mucin activates human dendritic cells and IL-8 production in a glycan-specific manner. J Biol Chem. 2018 Mar 26. pii: jbc.M117.789305. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M117.789305. [Epub ahead of print]

Griffiths W.J., Gilmore I., Yutuc E., Abdel-Khalik J., Crick P.J., Hearn T., Dickson A., Bigger B.W., Wu T.H., Goenka A., Ghosh A., Jones S.A., Wang Y. 2018 Identification Of Unusual Oxysterols And Bile acids With 7-Oxo Or 3β,5α,6β-Trihydroxy Functions In Human Plasma By Charge-Tagging Mass Spectrometry With Multistage Fragmentation. J Lipid Res. 2018 Apr 6. pii: jlr.D083246. doi: 10.1194/jlr.D083246. [Epub ahead of print]

May S., Owen H., Phesse T.J., Greenow K.R., Jones G.R., Blackwood A., Cook P.C., Towers C.,  Gallimore A.M., Williams G.T., Stürzl M.,  Britzen-Laurent N., Sansom O.J., MacDonald A.S., Bird A.P., Clarke A.R., Parry L. 2018 Mbd2 enables tumourigenesis within the intestine while preventing tumour-promoting inflammation. J Pathol. Mar 30. doi: 10.1002/path.5074. [Epub ahead of print]

Bálint Š., Lopes F.B., Davis D.M. 2018 A nanoscale reorganization of the IL-15 receptor is triggered by NKG2D in a ligand-dependent manner. Sci Signal. 2018 Apr 10;11(525). pii: eaal3606. doi: 10.1126/scisignal.aal3606.

Loftus C., Saeed M., Davis D.M., Dunlop I.E. 2018 Activation of Human Natural Killer Cells by Graphene Oxide-Templated Antibody Nanoclusters. Nano Lett. 2018 Apr 20. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01089. [Epub ahead of print]

Grants

Dr Joanne Konkel was awarded an Arthritis UK grant to look at Delineating the Immunological Links Between Periodontis and RA. £108,340.06

Congratulations

Congratulations to Kelly Wemyss from the Grainger lab who received an Ignition Award of £2,000 from the DTC (Centre for Doctoral Training) Project Award Fund. This award is co-ordinated by the Alliance Manchester Business School, the Manchester Enterprise Centre and the University’s Intellectual Property commercialisation division. Following submission of a business plan and a five minute pitch to a panel of experts, students with an idea deemed as having development potential were invited to apply for additional funding. Kelly will use this funding to further investigate the potential use of H. polygyrus excreted/secreted products in the treatment of chronic wounds.

Congratulations to Daniel Friedman from the Davis lab who has been awarded two travel awards, one from FBMH and one from the American Association of Immunology to attend the AAI annual conference in Austin Texas in May.

The Beautiful Cure

Prof Daniel Davis was on Sunday Brunch on channel 4 to promote his new book, the Beautiful Cure. Dan also gave an interview to New Zealand’s This Way Up and was featured in an article in Saga magazine. The Beautiful Cure, has reached #4 in the charts of all books on amazon.

MCCIR in UGANDA

Prof. Andrew MacDonald travelled to the Ugandan Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda to discuss ongoing collaborations there on the impact of schistosome infection on lung inflammation, and visited some of the field sites (3rd-6th March).  The busy market villages as pictured here are hotspots for transmission of schistosomiasis.

Social Responsibility

I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!

Dr Ben Mulhearn took part in I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!”, an online public engagement event where secondary school students get to chat with scientists in 30 minute online chat sessions. There are multiple zones and Ben was involved in the Immune System zone. The event was an X-Factor style knockout and Ben was the runner up. Well done Ben!

Hay Festival

Prof. Daniel Davis will give the 2018  John Maddox Lecture at this year’s Hay Festival. John Maddox was the editor of Nature for 20 years (or more) and died in 2009. Previous awardees include James Watson, Marcus Du Sutoy, Simon Singh, Carlo Rovelli, Steve Jones, Rolf Heuer (Director of CERN). Adam Rutherford will chair the talk. Details can be found here.

Science Meets Poetry

The collaborative science meets poetry project Pippa Kennedy from the Davis lab was a part of has been shortlisted for the best collaborative poetry project for the Saboteur Awards. It was a great project that scientists in Manchester, have the opportunity to perform in, so if it wins the award there’ll be all the more prestige when it comes around again as part of the Manchester Science Festival.  If you would like to vote the link can be found here. Ideally you’re voting for Dan Simpson and Sam Illingworth ‘Experimental Words’ in the collaborative poetry project category. More information on the project can be found here.

p.s. people can email Pippa if they have questions/want to hear a rendition! Unfortunately a video of the event is still being edited.

Welcome

Welcome to Dr Nick Scott who has joined the Konkel lab as a post-doc.

Publications

Hopwood T.W., Hall S., Begley N., Forman R., Brown S., Vonslow R., Saer B., Little M.C., Murphy E.A., Hurst R.J., Ray D.W., MacDonald A.S., Brass A., Bechtold D.A., Gibbs J.E., Loudon A.S., Else K.J.. 2018 The circadian regulator BMAL1 programmes responses to parasitic worm infection via a dendritic cell clock. Sci Rep. 2018 Feb 28;8(1):3782. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-22021-5.

Bahri R., Custovic A., Korosec P., Tsoumani M. Barron M., Wu J., Sayers R., Weimann A., Ruiz-Garcia M., Patel N. Robb A., Shamji M.H., Fontanella S., Silar M., Mills E.N.C., Simpson A., Turner P.J., Bulfone-Paus S. 2018 Mast cell activation test in the diagnosis of allergic disease and anaphylaxis. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2018 Mar 5. pii: S0091-6749(18)30308-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2018.01.043. [Epub ahead of print]

 Pariollaud M., Gibbs .J, Hopwood .T, Brown S., Begley N., Vonslow R., Poolman T., Guo B., Saer B., Jones D.H., Tellam J.P., Bresciani S., Tomkinson N.C., Wojno-Picon .J, Cooper A.W., Daniels D.A., Trump R.P., Grant D., Zuercher W., Willson T.M., MacDonald A.S., Bolognese B., Podolin P..L, Sanchez Y., Loudon A.S., Ray D.W. 2018 Circadian clock component REV-ERBα controls homeostatic regulation of pulmonary inflammation. J Clin Invest. 2018 Mar 13. pii: 93910. doi: 10.1172/JCI93910. [Epub ahead of print]

Invited presentations

Prof Andrew MacDonald spoke at the University of York on dendritic cells and macrophages in promotion and regulation of type 2 inflammation (16th Feb).

Prof Tracy Hussell presented her lab’s work on ‘Matrix dysfunction in COPD’ at the 16^th ERS Lung Society Conference in Estoril Portugal 8^th-11^th March 2018.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Lauren Cholewa who passed her PhD viva. Her thesis was on Matrisome alterations in lung inflammatory disease and her examiners were Prof David Thornton and Prof Luisa Martinez-Pomares.

Congratulations to Dr Kavit Amin from the Fildes lab who was awarded the highly competitive and prestigious Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) Research Fellowship. In the usual tradition this was met with a ceremony in London and the president and college council awarded him his fellowship. They felt as though the labs work on ex vivo limb preservation was a research topic that required much needed clinical support in the face of increasing civilian and military trauma. Kavit is also running the London Marathon next month for limbless ex-servicemen that have served the British military who would massively appreciate every donation to make their daily lives easier. Kavit’s fundraising page can be found here if you wish to donate.

Congratulations to Dr James Fildes who has been awarded a research award from Hans-Gabriel and Alice Trolle Wachtmeister’s Foundation for Medical Research, to explore how a new donor heart preservation device can improve outcomes after transplantation. The award is in collaboration with the godfather of ex-vivo perfusion, Prof Stig Steen (Lund University and Skåne University Hospital). James and Stig attended a ceremony at Locus Medicus in Lund and were given the award from Count Trolle-Wachtmeister and Baron Nils Gyllenkrok of Sweden.

MCCIR in the press

The Beautiful Cure

Prof Dan Davis was interviewed by Eamon Holmes about the immune system and The Beautiful Cure for TalkRadio. The Beautiful Cure has also received a number of rave reviews:

An eye-opening tour de force of scientific writing that reads like the best kind of adventure story. As David Attenborough opens our goggling eyes to the natural world without, so Daniel Davis brings us face to face with the stunningly clever and, yes, beautiful world within – our immune system. One of those books that makes you look at everything human in a new, challenging and thrilling way - Stephen Fry

One of the best accounts I have yet come across of the nature of biological science and discovery … Daniel Davis’s wonderful book recounts in exceptionally clear and sympathetic prose how research into the immune system in recent decades has resulted in what amounts to a health revolution … Davis’s book illustrates this wonderfully well: the immune system is a thing of great beauty and awesome complexity - Henry Marsh, New Statesman

Thrilling … Do not underestimate the importance of immunology. This field relates to you personally - Adam Rutherford, Guardian

 This book is an insight into new, remarkable and almost unnoticed advances in immunology and shows how medicine is moving on from the world of the gene to the world of the antibody - Steve Jones

Social Responsibility

I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!

Dr Ben Mulhearn has been taking part in I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!”, an online public engagement event where secondary school students get to chat with scientists in 30 minute online chat sessions. They also post questions to the website. There are multiple zones and Ben was involved in the Immune System zone. Some of the questions have been really interesting, such as “Why does a neutrophil have a kidney-shaped nucleus”, “Are you doing any experiments on the immune system in space”, and “What came first, the egg or the chicken”. Other questions have been about our day-to-day jobs, and some are just interested in what the grossest thing we’ve seen is! It’s also been an opportunity to let kids know that we don’t treat animals badly in research, which some have been fearful about, and I have been signposting them to the NC3Rs website. The event is an X-Factor style knockout and the ‘evictions’ have started last week, so fingers crossed, the prize money is £500 towards further public engagement in Ben’s hometown of Chorley.

Welcome

Welcome to Dr Sezin Gunaltay who has joined the Travis lab as a post-doc.

Publications

Carisey A.F., Mace E.M., Saeed M.B., Davis D.M., Orange J.S. 2017 Nanoscale Dynamism of Actin Enables Secretory Function in Cytolytic Cells. Curr Biol. 2018 Jan 30. pii: S0960-9822(17)31677-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.12.044. [Epub ahead of print]

Grabiec A.M., Goenka A., Fife M.E., Fujimori T., Hussell T. 2018 Axl and MerTK receptor tyrosine kinases maintain human macrophage efferocytic capacity in the presence of viral triggers. Eur J Immunol. 2018 Feb 5. doi: 10.1002/eji.201747283. [Epub ahead of print]

Emgård J., Kammoun H., García-Cassani B., Chesné J., Parigi S.M., Jacob J.M., Cheng H.W., Evren E., Das S., Czarnewski P., Sleiers N., Melo-Gonzalez F., Kvedaraite E., Svensson M., Scandella E., Hepworth M.R., Huber S., Ludewig B., Peduto L., Villablanca E.J., Veiga-Fernandes H., Pereira J.P., Flavell R.A., Willinger T. 2018 Oxysterol Sensing through the Receptor GPR183 Promotes the Lymphoid-Tissue-Inducing Function of Innate Lymphoid Cells and Colonic Inflammation. Immunity.  In press.

Entwistle T.R., Green A.C., Fildes J.E., Miura K. 2018 Adherence to Mediterranean and low-fat diets among heart and lung transplant recipients: a randomized feasibility study. Nutr J. 2018 Feb 14;17(1):22. doi: 10.1186/s12937-018-0337-y.

Invited presentations

Dr Amy Saunders gave a talk at the University of Birmingham on 12th Jan 2018 on "Suppression of the Skin Immune System in Health and Disease“.

Prof Andrew MacDonald gave a seminar at The Crick on the 19th Jan 2018, on ‘Dendritic cells and macrophages in promotion and regulation of Type 2 inflammation’

Professor Tracy Hussell was invited to the University of Madrid on the 8^th of Feb 2018 to talk about Decision making in lung immunity.

Grants

Dr James Fildes received an NHS University of Manchester grant of £4900 to extend Tim Entwistle’s position.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Dr Robert Metcalf  who was awarded the Dean’s Prize for clinicians. Rob is a Consultant in Medical Oncology and Honorary Senior Research Fellow working between the Experimental Cancer Medicine Team - Head and Neck Cancer, The Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust NHS and the Faculty. His research project that will be supported by the Dean’s Prize is: The role of MYB/NFIB gene fusion in switching off immune surveillance and switching on metastasis in MYB rearranged salivary gland cancer. Rob’s award follows on from his successful MCRC award last year, which was also supported by a consumables award from The Dean's Prize.

Congratulations to Dr Joanne Konkel who was awarded an ARUK grant to support a PhD studentship.

MCCIR in press

Immunology featured prominently on BBC Radio 4 Today programme on the 8th February 2018.  Science Editor Tom Feilden interviewed BSI President Peter Openshaw, alongside BSI members David Brough, Dan Davis, Mala Maini and Alan Melcher. They discussed how our increased understanding of immune system functions is leading to exciting new clinical applications for patients with a range of immune-related conditions including cancer and autoimmune diseases.  The full interview is able on the BBC iPlayer : at 1hr 32mins, where you can hear from Peter Openshaw, David Brough, Dan Davis, Mala Maini and Alan Melcher, and 2hr 44mins into the recording, which features a live interview with Professor Sir John Bell. 

The launch of the Beautiful Cure by Professor Daniel Davis at the Royal Institution was attended by over 380 people. Professor Daniel Davis has also been interviewed by Newstalk in Dublin regarding, The Beautiful Cure.  The book has also been reviewed in The Guardian, Observer, The Telegraph, New Scientist, New Statesman, and Literary Review. 

Welcome

Welcome to Alice Costain a joint PhD student with the MacDonald lab and the University of Leiden. Welcome also to Dr Tracy Rimington who has joined the MacDonald lab as a post-doc.

Welcome to Dr Craig McEntee who has joined the Travis lab as a post-doc.

Also welcome to Susanne Dechantsreiter who has joined the Davis lab as a PhD student, and to Chenfu Shi who is Wellcome Trust rotation PhD student with the Davis lab.

Publications

Paus R., Bulfone-Paus S., Bertolini M. 2018 Hair Follicle Immune Privilege Revisited: The Key to Alopecia Areata Management. J Investig Dermatol Symp Proc. 2018 Jan;19(1):S12-S17. doi: 10.1016/j.jisp.2017.10.014.

Abusleme L., Hong B.Y., Hoare A., Konkel J.E., Diaz .PI., Moutsopoulos N.1.  2017 Oral Microbiome Characterization in Murine Models. Bio Protoc. 2017 Dec 20;7(24). pii: e2655. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.2655.

Emgård J., Kammoun H., García-Cassani B., Chesné J., Parigi S.M., Jacob J.M., Cheng H.W., Evren E., Das S., Czarnewski P., Sleiers N., Melo-Gonzalez F., Kvedaraite E., Svensson M., Scandella E., Hepworth M.R., Huber S., Ludewig B., Peduto L., Villablanca E.J., Veiga-Fernandes H., Pereira J.P., Flavell R.A., Willinger T. 2018 Oxysterol Sensing through the Receptor GPR183 Promotes the Lymphoid-Tissue-Inducing Function of Innate Lymphoid Cells and Colonic Inflammation. Immunity. 2018 Jan 16;48(1):120-132.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2017.11.020.

Invited presentations

Dr Mark Travis gave an invited talk at the 11th European Workshop on Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases, Regulation of intestinal immune responses by TGF-beta Utrecht, Netherlands MT in December.

MCCIR in the press

Following on from the press release on the MCCIR renewal the radio interview with Professor Tracy Hussell and Malcolm Skingle (GSK Director Academic Liaisons ) discussing the  MCCIR-GSK collaboration was covered by 17 radio stations with a combined reach of approx. 423,000 people.

Social responsibility

The Beautiful Cure

Professor Daniel Davis will be presenting his new book, ‘The Beautiful Cure’ at The Royal Institution, London, and tickets are available here.

The first positive reviews of The Beautiful Cure came out this weekend in The Times & The Sunday Times. 

Welcome

Welcome to Jamie Kane and Alex Hale who are doing their Masters in the Davis lab and to Ananya Hoque who is doing her Masters with Tara Sutherland.

Welcome also to Tariq al Farsi who is working with Anu Goenka and to Ian Prise who is a visiting scientist with the Grainger lab.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Holly Linley from the Saunders’ lab and Mezida Saeed from the Davis’ lab who passed their PhD viva.

Publications

Hepworth M.R. 2017 Innate Lymphoid Cell Regulation: Meeting the Long-Lost Cousin. Trends Immunol. 2017 Oct 10. pii: S1471-4906(17)30187-4. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2017.09.003. [Epub ahead of print]

Amin K.R., Wong J.K.F., Fildes J.E. 2017 Strategies to Reduce Ischemia Reperfusion Injury in Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation of the Limb. J Hand Surg Am. 2017 Oct 18. pii: S0363-5023(17)30305-2. doi: 10.1016/j.jhsa.2017.09.013. [Epub ahead of print]

Withers D.R., Hepworth M.R. 2017 Group 3 Innate Lymphoid Cells: Communications Hubs of the Intestinal Immune System. Front Immunol. 2017 Oct 16;8:1298. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.01298. eCollection 2017.

MCCIR in the press

Dr James Fildes was quoted by a number of media outlets regarding his views on the controversial human head transplantation that was apparently performed by Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero and Dr Xiaoping Ren. James was quoted by The Independent and The Express, as well as on youtube, amongst many others.

MCCIR  Wellcome Trust Fellows visit China

Drs Grainger, Saunders and Mann attended the China-UK Life Science and Medicine Summit in Beijing at the end of September, organised by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Wellcome Trust. The aim was to foster China-UK research collaborations across a broad range of scientific topics, with Wellcome sending Henry Dale Fellows from all over the country to present at the meeting alongside the Chinese speakers. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to get a feel for immunology research in China and for us to start to make collaborations in China, on top of meeting other Fellows at other institutes in the UK who are working on related topics. We were looked after exceptionally well with events arranged for us including a Chinese concert which we all found very unique, and an excursion to the Great Wall which everyone enjoyed a great deal. All in all it was an extremely worthwhile trip.

MCCIR visits GSK at Stevenage

Researchers from the MCCIR, who have received funding for projects as part of the MCCIR renewal,visited GSK on 20th of November 2017. This visit was a chance to meet our GSK collaborators and discuss the finer details of the projects, many of which are just being started.

Social Responsibility

Science Spectacular 2017

The MCCIR presented its ‘Inflammation: the good and the bad’ research activity station at Science Spectacular on the 21st of October at Manchester Museum. The day was lots of fun and the Museum had over 1500 visitors through the door. As always the making play-doh good or bad bacteria went down well, and as a trial the use of the Imaris VR viewer to take a 3D tour of a macrophage seemed popular. Thank you to all those who helped out and especially Becky Edge for making all the play-doh. If you would like to be involved in future activities please let Fiona know.

Experiment Words

Experimental Words is a program setup by Dr. Sam Illingworth and Dan Simpson, which pairs scientists with poets and culminates in a science-inspired poetry night, performed in a local pub. At a recent event the scientist/poet combos talked on a range of topics including the decomposition of human bodies, environmental issues, psychology, and heart biology. Dr Pippa Kennedy from the Davis lab worked with a poet to produce a poem about the science of reproduction Pippa said that ‘I found poetry could broach complex and uncomfortable subjects succinctly and with humour. It was a fascinating process that took little effort on my part, but has given me a poem I can hopefully use in the future to reach a wider audience.’

Focus on

‌Dr Joanne Konkel studied biochemistry at the University of Bristol before completing her PhD at the University of Edinburgh. Joanne then moved the National Institutes of Health, USA for a post doc where she worked within the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research examining T cell development and differentiation. This move allowed Joanne to develop her own research programme examining how T cells are locally educated at mucosal barrier sites. Supported by a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship, Joanne’s group specifically focuses on elucidating the pathways supporting appropriate T cell function at the oral mucosal barriers of the mouth. Since starting her fellowship Joanne has secured additional funding from the industry, the ARUK and CRUK to support further work examining how the immune network active in the mouth functions to support immune homeostasis at this understudied barrier site.

Green Corner

MCCIR Bake Off

‌‌It’s on again! Thursday 23rd of November, in the lunch area at 2 pm. Prizes for the best cake and the greenest cake! We will also be raising funds for Blesma, so please come and donate, eat cake and help pick a winner!

Christmas Jumper Day

In addition to the Bake off the MCCIR green impact team and MFIG will be organizing a Christmas Jumper day. The jumper day will be on the 18th of December, please keep your eye out for announcements with more information.

Welcome

Welcome to Rossana Azzoni who is starting her PhD in the Grainger lab.

Welcome also to Elliot Saunders who is a master’s student in the Hussell lab, Rizwana Rahman who is doing a master’s in the Hussell / Metcalf labs and Humaiyn Uddin who is doing his master’s in the Saunders lab.

Welcome also to Abbey Geraghty, Fatma Sawalim and Bilqis Hassan who are placement students in the Fildes group.

Invited presentations

Dr Mark Travis gave an invited talk at 8th International Conference on Autoimmunity: Mechanisms and Novel Treatments, in Rhodes, Greece. The talk was entitled ‘Regulation of the intestinal immune response by integrins and TGF-beta’

Professor Andrew MacDonald gave two seminars in September, the first at the European Macrophage and Dendritic Cell Society annual conference in Madrid (21st – 23rd Sep) about tissue-specific control of macrophage activation in the lung during type-2 inflammation, the second at the Weatherall Institute in Oxford (27th Sep) about dendritic cells and macrophages during type-2 inflammation.

Publications

Konkel J.E., Moutsopoulos N.M. 2017 Unique Tailoring of Th17 at the Gingival Oral Mucosal Barrier. J Dent Res. 2017 Oct 1:22034517736030. doi: 10.1177/0022034517736030. [Epub ahead of print]

Moutsopoulos N.M., Konkel J.E. 2017 Tissue-Specific Immunity at the Oral Mucosal Barrier. Trends Immunol. Sep 8. pii: S1471-4906(17)30169-2. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2017.08.005. [Epub ahead of print]

Krishnamoorthy B., Critchley W.R., Nair J., Malagon .I, Carey J., Barnard J.B., Waterworth P.D., Venkateswaran R.V., Fildes J.E., Caress A.L., Yonan N. 2017 Randomized Study Comparing the Effect of Carbon Dioxide Insufflation on Veins Using 2 Types of Endoscopic and Open Vein Harvesting. Innovations (Phila). Oct 9. doi: 10.1097/IMI.0000000000000405. [Epub ahead of print]

MCCIR in the press

Professor Dan Davis’ new book cover has just been designed and is now available to pre-order.

Professor Davis was also quoted in the Guardian and some other places regarding the nobel prize in chemistry going to a trio of scientists (Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson) for their work on cryo-electron microscopy.

Professor Davis and his lab were featured in the second episode of the Human Body: secrets of your life revealed. Dan discussed the power of super-resolution microscopy in discovering how natural killer cells function and how learning about this can lead the development of new medicines. Eric and Katie also looked super impressive in their visors and gloves!

Social responsibility

Science Uncovered 2017

On 29th September Manchester Museum opened its doors for an evening of discovery with Science Uncovered. The event is a collaboration with the Natural History museum in London as part of European researcher’s night, and sees researchers from all fields coming together to share their work with stands, talks and activities. PhD student Katie Walwyn-Brown spoke about her research during the lightning talks and science storytelling sessions and Dr Mark Travis was there as part of 'Team Mucus' explaining their research on how the immune system and mucus in the intestine keeps us healthy

Welcome

Welcome to Dr Lizzie Mann who has joined the MCCIR as a Sir Henry Dale Wellcome Trust Royal Society fellow. Lizzie’s research focuses on understanding how the gut microbiota shapes intestinal macrophage function to educate the adaptive immune system long term to avoid pathogenic T cell responses. This process is critical for avoiding inappropriate immune responses against the gut microbiota that cause inflammatory bowel disease.

Welcome to Dr Shafqat Jaigirdar who has joined the Saunders’ lab as a post-doc.

Welcome to all our new PhD students: Josh Dow and Stefano Rossi in the Travis lab, Thomas Williams and Rufus Daw in the Grainger lab, Poppy Simmonds, Alexandros Karampatzakis, Karolina Tuomela, and Ines Diaz Del Olmo in the Davis lab, Barbara Salcman in the Bulfone-Paus group and Alicia Galdon, Dennis Au and Amanda Ridley in the MacDonald lab.

Welcome to Dr Alexandra Griffiths who has joined the Fildes’ lab on an academic rotation as part of her FY2 Foundation medical training, Ana Valera Perez who is a visiting PhD student with the Lopez-Castejon lab and Flora McClure who is a Masters student with the Grainger lab.

Congratulations

Congratulations to William Critchley from the Fildes group and Pablo Palazon from the Lopez-Castejon group who both passed their PhD vivas.

Congratulations to Poppy Simmonds who has been awarded a President’s Doctoral Scholar (PDS) Recognition Award.

Grants

Dr Mark Travis and Professor Daniel Davis: Determining a Novel Pathway that Controls TGF-Beta Activation in the Immune System. BBSRC £534,949

Dr Peter Cook: Defining the Key Human Innate Immune Cells that Control Anti-Fungal Immunity and Inflammation. Academy of Medical Sciences £99, 977

Invited presentations

In July Dr Joanne Konkel was selected to attend an ARUK-CRUK sandpit on “immune homeostasis”. This was a three day event held in Oxford aimed at generating new ideas that would be beneficial in both RA and cancer.

Dr Mark Travis gave a talk at Medimmune (Gaithersburg, Maryland) on 17th July entitled 'Regulation of intestinal T cell responses' and a talk at the International Mucosal Immunology Congress on 21st July entitled 'Regulation of intestinal T cell responses by TGF-beta'.

Publications

Zhang D., Chia C., Jiao X., Jin W., Kasagi S., Wu R., Konkel J.E., Nakatsukasa H., Zanvit P., Goldberg N., Chen Q., Sun L., Chen Z.J., Chen W.. 2017 D-mannose induces regulatory T cells and suppresses immunopathology. Nat Med. Sep;23(9):1036-1045. doi: 10.1038/nm.4375. Epub 2017 Jul 24.

Placek K., Hu G., Cui K., Zhang D., Ding Y., Lee J.E., Jang Y., Wang C., Konkel J.E., Song J., Liu C., Ge K., Chen W., Zhao K. 2017 MLL4 prepares the enhancer landscape for Foxp3 induction via chromatin looping. Nat Immunol. Sep;18(9):1035-1045. doi: 10.1038/ni.3812. Epub 2017 Jul 31.

Goenka A., Jeena P.M., Mlisana K., Solomon T., Spicer K., Stephenson R., Verma A., Dhada B., Griffiths M.J. 2017 Rapid Accurate Identification of Tuberculous Meningitis Among South African Children Using a Novel Clinical Decision Tool. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2017 Aug 1. doi: 10.1097/INF.0000000000001726. [Epub ahead of print]

Blandin Knight S., Crosbie P.A., Balata H., Chudziak J., Hussell T., Dive C. 2017 Progress and prospects of early detection in lung cancer. Open Biol. Sep;7(9). pii: 170070. doi: 10.1098/rsob.170070.

Brignall R., Cauchy P., Bevington S.L., Gorman B., Pisco A.O., Bagnall J., Boddington C., Rowe W., England H., Rich K., Schmidt L., Dyer N.P.., Travis M.A., Ott S., Jackson D.A., Cockerill P.N., Paszek P. 2017 Integration of Kinase and Calcium Signaling at the Level of Chromatin Underlies Inducible Gene Activation in T Cells. J Immunol. Sep 13. pii: ji1602033. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1602033. [Epub ahead of print]

MCCIR in the press

Professor Daniel Davis’ talk at Latitude music festival – about the actin mesh– was featured in New Scientist

The Daily Mail reviews new BBC2 series The Human Body: Secrets Of Your Life Revealed, which starts next week. Professor Dan Davis, will appear in the series.

Professor Daniel Davis was interviewed by Adam Levy for a podcast on nanotubes for Nature.

Welcome

Welcome to Dr Peter West who has joined the Bulfone-Paus lab as a post-doc.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Siddharth Krishnan, a PhD student in the Grainger and Lawrence Labs, who was awarded the prize for the Outstanding Student Presentation at the 3rd UK Preclinical Stroke Symposium in Nottingham (26th-27th June 2017). This consisted of a travel award of £150 towards the conference.

Congratulations to Dr Anu Goenka, who was part of the team, awarded   Highly Commended  for Excellence in Engagement through Digital Channels at the Communiqué Awards Ceremony on the 4^th of July. This award was for the Vaccines in Practice eLearning course by the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health.

‌Congratulations to Katie Walwyn-Brown from the Davis lab who won the FBMH public engagement award for students. Katie was recognized for her talks and standup comedy, videos, involvement with Soapbox Science and the volunteering she has done at museum events and open days (including helping with the MCCIR stand!)

Presentations

Prof Andrew MacDonald visited Imperial College (St Mary’s campus) and gave a seminar about the role of Type I IFN in Th2 induction by dendritic cells.

Dr Tara Sutherland attended a Medical Research Foundation Fellows reception in London on the 13th June. The MRF (along with Asthma UK) fund her fellowship and is the MRCs independent charity. This was an opportunity to meet other Fellow’s, the MRF staff and the trustee’s. Tara also attended the MRC Fellow’s Symposium at BMA House, Tavistock Square in London the following day or a day of networking and looking at the future of research and funding.

Prof Silvia Bulfone-Paus also gave a lecture at the International Mancunian Skin Meeting May 4-5, Martin Barron and Haris Atmoko presented a poster.

Dr Rajia Bahri and Karen Garcia Rodriguez from the Bulfone-Paus group presented a poster and Professor Silvia Bulfone-Paus  gave a lecture at the EMBRN meeting in Prague May 25-27.  Jiakai Wu  also from the Bulfone-Paus lab gave an oral presentation at EAACI , in Helsinki in June.

Publications

Krishnamoorthy B., Critchley W.R., Thompson A.J., Payne K., Morris J., Venkateswaran R.V., Caress A.L., Fildes J.E., Yonan N. 2017 A Study Comparing Vein Integrity and Clinical Outcomes (VICO) in Open Vein Harvesting and Two Types of Endoscopic Vein Harvesting for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting: The VICO Randomised Clinical Trial. Circulation. Jun 21. pii: CIRCULATIONAHA.117.028261. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.028261. [Epub ahead of print]

Webb L.M., Lundie R.J., Borger J.G., Brown S.L., Connor L.M., Cartwright A.N., Dougall A.M., Wilbers R.H., Cook P.C., Jackson-Jones L.H., Phythian-Adams A.T., Johansson C., Davis D.M., Dewals B.G., Ronchese F., MacDonald A.S. 2017 Type I interferon is required for T helper (Th) 2 induction by dendritic cells. EMBO J. Jul 17. pii: e201695345. doi: 10.15252/embj.201695345. [Epub ahead of print]

Social Responsibility

Blue Dot Festival

From 7th – 9th July 2017 people from all over the country headed to Jodrell Bank to enjoy a weekend of science and music at Bluedot Festival.

Emma Houlder, Freya Svedberg, Katie Walwyn-Brown and Tovah Shaw volunteered on the Britain Breathing stand, talking lungs, allergies and citizen science with over 3000 people over the weekend.  Katie also performed a stand-up comedy set for Science Showoff all about biologists in space.

Latitude Festival

Prof Daniel Davis took part in a discussion on ‘Immunity and the Health Revolution’ at the Wellcome Trust tent, which was over-flowing. Dan discussed how our knowledge of the immune system leads us to new ideas for medicines. Picture shows comedian Robin Ince, immunologist Dr. Natalie Riddell, and Dan

Dr Pippa Kennedy was invited to take part in a panel discussion at Latitude Festival on "Reading cures - Can reading make us happier and healthier?" Pippa talked alongside Di Speirs, Books Editor for BBC Radio; Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Professor Victoria Tischler, Professor of Arts and Health at the University of West London. They covered a range of issues, including the positive effects of reading on dementia care, anxiety disorders and empathy, as well as the NHS Books on Prescription Scheme. The panel was hosted by the Wellcome Book Prize.

‌MCCIR researcher is the first recipient of multi-million pound Kennedy Trust award for rheumatic disease research

A researcher at Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research (MCCIR) is set to establish a world-class research program that aims to shed new light on rheumatoid arthritis, after becoming the first ever awardee of a £2.5 million Kennedy Trust Senior Fellowship.

Established in 1966, The Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research is a charity best-known for its support of the ground-breaking work by Profs Marc Feldmann and Ravinder Maini on identifying TNF as a therapeutic target for inflammatory diseases. Most of its current funding is focussed on supporting the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford. Now, for the first time in its history, the Trust decided to broaden its funding to other institutions by launching a new Kennedy Trust Senior Fellowship scheme.

A panel of international experts appointed by the Trust reviewed applications from fifteen of the UK’s top universities and the MCCIR’s Dr John Grainger was selected as the first awardee.

A major focus of the award is to understand how two of our most important bodily systems, the immune system and the nervous system, work together to program the actions of one cell-type; the macrophage. Dr Grainger will be working with the Centre for Musculoskeletal Research and NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre, using blood and joint samples provided by patients from The Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. John’s research will unravel the complex communication between macrophages and pathways previously attributed to the nervous system, to identify novel therapeutic opportunities.

Dr Grainger said: “It is really a superb opportunity for me, The University of Manchester and The Kennedy Trust to diversify our efforts to understand rheumatoid arthritis. This award allows me to take risks and employ my basic immunology expertise in an area of cutting-edge translational science that has the potential to make a difference to patients’ lives.”

Describing the unique opportunities The University of Manchester provides for Dr Grainger’s research the Head of the School of Biological Sciences, Professor Jane Worthington, said: “We are thrilled that John’s excellent career to date has been rewarded in this manner. We are committed to developing the next generation of world-class research academics. Immunology and musculoskeletal sciences are priority areas for the University and so an award that unites the two is particularly exciting.”

Professor Hill Gaston, Chair of the Kennedy Trust’s Scientific Committee, commented: “Dr Grainger’s proposal, selected from an extremely strong field, is ground-breaking and innovative and we are delighted to be able to support his work in this way.”

Welcome

Welcome to Bethany-Rose Jebson and Amanda Ridley who are doing their Masters in the Cook and MacDonald labs respectively.

Welcome also to Andrea Luengas and Naomi Robinson who are doing their Masters in the Saunders’ lad and to Tooba Sehar who is doing her Masters in the Lopez-Castejon lab.

Welcome also to Dr Sean Blandin Knight who is an Academic Clinical Fellow in the Hussell lab.

Presentations

Freya Svedberg from the MacDonald lab presented a poster on her work entitled ‘The lung environment controls the ability of macrophages to respond to type-2 inflammation’ at the Keystone ‘Mononuclear phagocytes in health, immune defence and disease’ meeting in Austin, Texas (April 30th - May 4th).

Dr Joanne Konkel gave a talk at Cardiff University on Training immune function at the oral barrier.

Professor Andrew MacDonald was part of a delegation of UK immunologists (including Andrew McMichael, Anne O’Garra, Peter Openshaw, Tim Elliot, Arne Akbar and Enzo Cerundolo) invited to speak at the inaugural British Society of Immunology - Chinese Society of Immunology joint symposium in Immunology in Shanghai (May 24th - 28th).

Publications

• Andreasson A.S.I., Borthwick L.A., Gillespie C., Jiwa K., Scott J., Henderson P., Mayes J., Romano R., Roman M., Ali S., Fildes J.E., Marczin N., Dark J.H., Fisher A.J.; DEVELOP-UK Investigators. 2017 The role of interleukin-1β as a predictive biomarker and potential therapeutic target during clinical ex vivo lung perfusion. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2017 May 12. pii: S1053-2498(17)31793-X. doi: 10.1016/j.healun.2017.05.012. [Epub ahead of print]
• Mayer J.U., Demiri M., Agace W.W., MacDonald A.S., Svensson-Frej M., Milling S.W.. 2017 Different populations of CD11b+ dendritic cells drive Th2 responses in the small intestine and colon. Nat Commun. 2017 Jun 9;8:15820. doi: 10.1038/ncomms15820.

Social responsibility

Hay Festival

Professor Dan Davis participated in six events at this year’s Hay Festival in Wales, including a Royal Society Panel discussion about gene technology and a discussion about the connections between our immune and nervous systems with neuroscientist Prof Alasdair Coles (pictured).

3 Minute Thesis

On Wednesday 7th June, Katie Walwyn-Brown competed in the University final of 3 Minute Thesis. Contestants from across the faculties presented their PhD research in 3 minutes in a bid to win the audience over. There were some excellent talks and Katie won the audience vote for the best talk!! Well done Katie.

Welcome

Welcome to Dr Oliver Brand who has joined the Hussell lab as a post-doc.

Welcome to Dr Robert Metcalf who is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow, he is a consultant medical oncologist at the Christie Hospital whose interests lie in onco-immunology especially related to head and neck tumours. He will be working with the Hussell group.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Dr Peter Cook who was awarded a Springboard grant from the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Invited presentations

Dr Parminder Chaggar from the Fildes lab gave two poster presentations at the European Society for Cardiology annual meeting in Paris April 29th – 2nd May; "Pre-existing inflammation does not influence onset or severity of heart failure and Serum decorin correlates with heart failure phenotype."

Publications

Minutti C.M., Jackson-Jones .LH., García-Fojeda B., Knipper J.A., Sutherland T.E., Logan N., Rinqvist E., Guillamat-Prats R., Ferenbach D.A.,Artigas A., Stamme C., Chroneos Z., Zaiss .DM., Casals C., Allen J.E. Local amplifiers of IL-4Rα-mediated macrophage activation promote repair in lung and liver. Science. 2017 May 11. pii: eaaj2067. doi: 10.1126/science.aaj2067. [Epub ahead of print]

• Morgan D.J., Davis D.M. 2017 Distinct Effects of Dexamethasone on Human Natural Killer Cell Responses Dependent on Cytokines. Front Immunol. Apr 13;8:432. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.00432. eCollection 2017.
• Stone J., Ball A.L., Critchley W.R., Major T., Edge R.E., Amin K., Clancy M., Fildes J.E. 2016 Ex vivo normothermic perfusion reduces kidney immunogenicity prior to transplantation via removal of passenger leukocytes. Kidney International Reports November 2016 Volume 1, Issue 4, Pages 230–239

Tracy to the Francis Crick Institute

Professor Tracy Hussell was invited to the Francis Crick Institute to be on the panel for the Crick/Nature World Immunology Day: Collaborating to Beat Lung Infections and Asthma on the 5th of May 2017.

Along with Professor Peter Openshaw, Professor Caetano Reis e Sousa and Professor Catherine Hawrylowicz and representatives from Nature publishing, Tracy talked about collaborating to beat lung infections and asthma.

LISTEN (.mp3)

MCCIR Director elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences 

Professor Tracy Hussell, Director of the MCCIR, has been elected to the prestigious Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the UK’s independent body representing the diversity of medical science. Tracy is one of 46 UK researchers elected as Fellows in recognition of their contribution to biomedical and health research, the generation of new knowledge in medical sciences and its translation into benefits to society. This year’s intake saw 17 women scientists elected which at 37% is the highest female cohort to date.

Professor Hussell commented: It is a great honour to be elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, particularly as part of such a large female contingent. Over my entire career I have been supported by a strong “scientific family” that was generated around Professor Brigitte Askonas who would have been thrilled by this news.

This year's elected Fellows have expertise that spans women’s health, immunology, public health and infectious disease among many other fields. President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Professor Sir Robert Lechler PMedSci, commented: “The election of these 46 exceptional biomedical and health researchers is a well-deserved honour. Each newly elected Fellow has made an outstanding impact in the community, contributing to the development of better healthcare - from fundamental scientific understanding to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. I am delighted to welcome them to the Academy and greatly look forward to working with them all in the future.”

“The Academy has worked hard to ensure our Fellowship represents the true diversity of biomedical science,” added Professor Philippa Saunders FMedSci, Registrar of the Academy of Medical Sciences, "We are delighted this cohort of Fellows sees us welcome the highest proportion of women ever elected - a testament to the very many brilliant women at the forefront of world leading medical science. In the coming year we will maintain our focus on increasing diversity, and hope that the proportion of women Fellows elected - and the diversity of our Fellowship more broadly – continues to grow in future."

381 candidates were considered for this year’s Fellowships with the final 46 selected from a shortlist of 109. Professor Hussell will join the other new Fellows at a ceremony on 28 June 2017 when they will be formally admitted to the Academy.

Welcome

Welcome to Dr Sylvia Lui a post-doc in the Hussell lab and to Faiza Mahmood a Masters student in the Konkel lab.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Dr Jiakai Wu who has been awarded an EAACI Congress Scholarship to attend the EAACI Congress 2017 to be held in Helsinki, Finland, 17-21 June 2017.

Invited presentations

Dr John Grainger and Dr Tovah Shaw were invited to The Kennedy Institute, University of Oxford by Fiona Powrie. John gave a seminar about "Long-range training of mononuclear phagocytes in infection and injury" and Tovah discussed her latest macrophage data with the Powrie lab.

Dr Peter Cook attended and gave a talk at the 53rd Annual British Society of Medical Mycology (BSMM) scientific meeting in Birmingham on ‘Defining key checkpoints in dendritic cell control of anti-fungal immunity and inflammation’.

Publications

• Stone J.P., Mohamud M., Amin K., Critchley W.R., Edge R.J., Clancy M.J., Ball A.L., Fildes J.E. 2017 Characterising the early inflammatory contribution of the donor kidney following reperfusion. Nephrology, dialysis and transplantation Published 27th Feb https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfw464
• Dholakia S., Fildes J.E., Friend P.J. 2017 The use of kinase inhibitors in solid organ transplantation. Transplant Rev (Orlando). Mar 25. pii: S0955-470X(17)30003-4. doi: 10.1016/j.trre.2017.02.008. [Epub ahead of print]
• Grabiec A.M., Denny N., Doherty J.A., Happonen K.E. (AZ), Hankinson J., Connolly E., Fife M.E., Fujimori T., Fujino N., Goenka A., Holden S., Tavernier G., Shah R., Cook P.C., MacDonald A.S., Niven R.M., MD, Dahlbäck B. (AZ), Fowler S.J., Simpson A., Hussell T. 2017 Diminished airway macrophage expression of the Axl receptor tyrosine kinase is associated with defective efferocytosis in asthma. J. Allergy Clin Immunol. In press
• Cocco M, Pellegrini C, Martínez Banaclocha H, Giorgis M, Marini E, Costale A, Miglio G, Fornai M, Antonioli L, Lopez-Castejon G, Tapia-Abellan A, Angosto D, Hafner-Bratkovič I, Regazzoni L, Blandizzi C, Pelegrin P, Bertinaria M. 2017 Development of an Acrylate Derivative Targeting the NLRP3 Inflammasome for the Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. J Med Chem. 2017 Apr 14. doi: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.6b01624. [Epub ahead of print]
• Kelly A., Houston S.A., Sherwood E., Casulli J., Travis M.A. 2017 Regulation of Innate and Adaptive Immunity by TGFβ. Adv Immunol. 2017;134:137-233. doi: 10.1016/bs.ai.2017.01.001. Epub 2017 Feb 10.
• Konkel J.E., Zhang D., Zanvit P., Chia C., Zangarle-Murray T., Jin W., Wang S., Chen W. 2017 Transforming Growth Factor-β Signaling in Regulatory T Cells Controls T Helper-17 Cells and Tissue-Specific Immune Responses. Immunity. 2017 Apr 18;46(4):660-674. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2017.03.015.

MCCIR and The Wellcome Trust

Drs Gloria Lopez-Castejon, John Grainger, Amy Saunders and Matt Hepworth attended the annual Sir Henry Dale fellows meeting at The Wellcome Trust in London. They spent the day finding out what other Wellcome Trust fellows are doing.

Social responsibility

MCCIR in the London Marathon

Kids Kidney Research ran a news story on John Stone as he ran the London marathon for them this year. John ran the marathon in a very impressive 2hrs 48 minutes and raised £630 for Kids Kidney Research (KKR). He has now raised over £6000 for kidney research from his marathon runs. KKR is a charity close to John’s heart because of his nephew has polycystic kidney disease. This charity fund vital research into various kidney diseases in children so it is something he is passionate about supporting. John’s fundraising page can be found here if you would like to donate.

Manchester Grammar School

Dr Mark Travis gave a talk at the Manchester Grammar School Philosophical Society on 17th March 2017, which was founded in 1869 by Manchester Grammar School students and is believed to be the second oldest scientific society in the world after the Royal Society! The talk was entitled "Gut reactions: the good and the bad of the immune system in the intestine".

Body Experience 2017

Body Experience was held on the 18th of March at Manchester Museum, during which the MCCIR presented ‘The Immune System’ research activity station. There were an estimated 2000 visitors to the museum on the day, making it a busy day. The bugs and ducks proved as popular as ever and hopefully informed a few people about the immune system.

A huge thank you to all those who came and helped out. Watch a video of the day

Welcome

Welcome to Chris Jagger who has joined the Hussell lab as a Research Assistant.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Mark Fife from the Hussell lab on passing his PhD viva.

Congratulations to Tim Entwistle and Bhuvana Krishnamoorthy from the Fildes lab for passing their PhD viva.

Invited presentations

Dr Tara Sutherland presented a poster entitled Chitinase-like proteins: the missing link in allergen induced neutrophil inflammation?” at AZ/UoM Science Collaboration Day; 9th Feb, Alderley Park.

Prof Tracy Hussell presented her work on models of lung Inflammation and how these can be used to assess safety at AZ/UoM Science Collaboration Day; 9th Feb, Alderley Park.

Dr James Fildes gave an invited talk at the American Cardiothoracic Transplantation meeting in Vail, Colorado called 'Altering donor organ immunity via ex-vivo perfusion'

Will Critichley from the Fildes lab was shortlisted for the Early Career Basic Science Award by the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance and gave a talk at their Annual Scientific Sessions 2017 in Washington DC. This talk was titled 'In vitro and in vivo effects of CMR on circulating leukocytes'

Publications

• Lopes F.B., Bálint S., Valvo S., Felce J.H., Hessel E.M., Dustin M.L., Davis D.M. 2017 Membrane nanoclusters of FcγR1 segregate from inhibitory SIRPα upon activation of human macrophages. Journal of Cell Biology March 13, https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201608094
• Grainger J.R., Konkel J., Zangerle-Murray T., Shaw T.N. 2017 Macrophages in gastrointestinal homeostasis and inflammation. Pflugers Arch. Mar 10. doi: 10.1007/s00424-017-1958-2. [Epub ahead of print]
• Ruckerl D., Campbell S.M. Duncan S., Sutherland T.E., Jenkins S.J., Hewitson J.P., Barr T.A., Jackson-Jones .LH., Maizels R.M., Allen J.E (2017) Macrophage origin limits functional plasticity in helminth- bacterial co-infection. PLoS Pathog 13(3)
• McFarlane A.J., McSorley H.J., Davidson D.J., Fitch P.M., Errington C., Mackenzie K.J., Gollwitzer E.S. Johnston C.J., MacDonald A.S., Edwards M.R., Harris N.L., Marsland B.J., Maizels R.M., Schwarze J. 2017 Enteric helminth-induced type-I interferon signalling protects against pulmonary virus infection through interaction with the microbiota. J Allergy Clin Immunol. Feb 11. pii: S0091-6749(17)30229-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2017.01.016. [Epub ahead of print]
• Bulfone-Paus S., Nilsson G., Draber P., Blank U., Levi-Schaffer F. 2017 Positive and Negative Signals in Mast Cell Activation. Trends in Immunology, in Press, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.it.2017.01.008

MCCIR in the press

On February 17th the Davis lab hosted a BBC film crew, who were collecting material for an upcoming series. One of the episodes will feature the immune system, so Prof Davis was filmed at one of his lab’s super-resolution microscopes discussing the immune synapse. ‘It’s fantastic that the immune system will feature in a high profile documentary and fun that we could showcase the MCCIR and our state-of-the-art microscopy at the same time’.

Social responsibility

Famelab

On Monday 20th February, Katie Walwyn-Brown from the Davis lab competed in the Manchester Regional Final of Famelab. Famelab is a science communication competition where researchers present their favourite parts of science in entertaining short talks, with no powerpoint allowed! It was a fun evening with talk topics ranging from how spicy food affects your body to why some people have perfect memories. Katie’s talk on body clocks and the immune system won the wildcard prize and will be put forward with the other regional wild cards for a possible place in the UK final.

MCCIR in the press

Dr Joanne Konkel from the MCCIR was recently in the press! Her article on the health benefits of chewing your food was highlighted in both The Express and Daily Mirror.

The article can be found at Immunity: On-going Mechanical Damage from Mastication Drives Homeostatic Th17 Cell Responses at the Oral Barrier and a review at Immunity: Th17 Cells Require You to Chew before You Swallow.

MCCIR at Latitude Festival 2016

Following on from Dr Pippa Kennedy’s, "The immune System: Health and Happiness" talk at Latitude Festival 2016, a podcast has been put together in which Pippa is joined by Alex Kogan to talk all things health, happiness and the immune system.

Professor Daniel Davis was in The Guardian, talking about the secrets of people who never get sick.

Welcome

Welcome to Dr Matt Hepworth, a Sir Henry Dale Wellcome Trust Fellow who has joined the MCCIR. Matt is based in the AV Hill Building and his lab includes Felipe Melo Gonzalez, who did his PhD with Mark Travis.

Amy Wilcock is an Academic Clinical Fellow (ACF) in Paediatrics supported by the NHS England Northwest and NIHR. She will be working on a joint project between Peter Arkwright and Professor Silvia Bulfone-Paus and has joined the Bulfone-Paus lab. Her project will focus on Mast cell-induced allergic inflammation: the role of tryptases.

Invited presentations

In January 2017, Dr Mark Travis gave a talk at TGF-beta in Immunity, Inflammation and Cancer Keystone conference in Taos, New Mexico entitled "Human Blood Monocyte and Intestinal Macrophage Populations Regulate TGF-beta Activity via Expression of the Integrin Alphav beta8".

Publications

• Pellegrini C., Antonioli L., Lopez-Castejon G., Blandizzi C., and Fornai M. 2017 Canonical and Non-Canonical Activation of NLRP3 Inflammasome at the Crossroad between Immune Tolerance and Intestinal Inflammation Front. Immunol., 25 January

Congratulations

Dr Peter Cook attended the Gordon Research Seminar and Conference (GRS/GRC) on Immunology of Fungal Infections in Galveston, Texas, USA, and won the poster prize (Title: Dendritic cells are required to mediate and sustain type-2 and type-17 allergic inflammation against Aspergillus fumigatus).

MCCIR visit GSK

Professors Hussell, MacDonald, Davis, Bulfone-Paus and Drs Travis, Lopez-Castejon and Fildes travelled down to Stevenage in early February for a day of discussions about potential future collaborative projects. The day was extremely productive with a number of projects being identified and a number of future meetings already in the diary!

Social responsibility

Body Experience 2017

Body Experience is back for 2017! Funded by the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, this fantastic family friendly public engagement event is being held at Manchester Museum on Saturday 18th of March 2017. The event takes visitors through a guided tour of the body and the MCCIR will be hosting its ‘Inflammation: the good and the bad’ activity station.