Structural Immunobiology

Current research projects

• Variation in KIR receptors on NK can be exploited to improve bone marrow transplantation

  The matching of donor bone marrow in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is of critical importance to long-term successful treatment of a number of blood cancers, including acute myeloid leukaemia. Despite a growing appreciation that the mis-matching of donor KIR and recipient HLA can improve outcomes in HSCT, the field has nonetheless been hampered by a lack of data on allelic variation of KIR receptors. Our research aims to understand the biological consequences of KIR/HLA pairings such that high-resolution typing of KIR/HLA from donors and recipients can be used to improve long-term survival rates in HSCT.

  Natural Killer cells integrate inhibitory and activating signals

  Harnessing NK cells is of benefit to a number of potential biotechnology applications. B-cell- and T-cell-based technologies have grown exponentially directly from basic research into understanding the role receptor molecules play in immune activation. These investigations have yielded chimeric-antigen T-cells, checkpoint inhibitors and antibody therapies. By comparison, NK cells show similar promise as platform technologies. Yet NK cell technology development lags that of T cells and B cells due to the complexity of the array of inhibitory and activating receptors that combine to drive functional diversity of NK cells. We aim to understand how inhibitory and activating signals are integrated to unlock new avenues for NK-based applications.