Team Leader
Professor Mariapia Degli-Esposti
Immunological processes are responsible for fighting infection and cancer, but if not limited can result in inflammatory diseases and autoimmunity.
Many eye diseases, ranging from uveitis and keratitis to age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy have an immune or inflammatory component. Inflammation can also induce retinal degeneration. Furthermore, infections can impair vision. For example, viruses can contribute to the development of autoimmune diseases that affect the eye, including Sjögren’s Disease. Additionally, some viruses can scar the cornea and cause vision impairment or even vision loss.
Understanding how immune responses are regulated is key to striking the balance that ensures protection from infection but prevents deleterious inflammation.
The Experimental Immunology Team’s original discovery-research focuses on the impact of inflammation in health and disease with the aim to translate these scientific discoveries directly into clinical treatments.
The team’s vision is to develop effective therapies by harnessing the immune system to maintain protective immune responses whilst curbing inflammation that may lead to impairment and/or loss of vision.
Specifically, our research aims to understand how immune responses are regulated in tissues including the eye, and the impact of inflammation and infection as a cause of eye disease. Ultimately, these studies will guide the design of new strategies to safeguard vision.
Relevant technologies
The Experimental Immunology Team uses a variety of technologies to dissect the processes underlying immunity, autoimmunity, and inflammation.
1. Cellular technologies
The immune system is comprised of a variety of cell types with specialised functions. The team regularly uses high-parameter flow cytometry, cell sorting, and multi-parameter confocal microscopy to identify, characterise, and track the cells of the immune system in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro. Our techniques also apply to other cellular components, including the vasculature.
2. Molecular technologies
The team has extensive experience with a wide range of molecular technologies including real-time PCR, site-directed mutagenesis, transfection, transgenics, and transcriptomics. Cutting-edge technologies including single cell-RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics are also employed in many of our studies. These technologies make it possible to study the molecular pathways underlying immunological processes. These technologies also enable the generation of viral mutants to examine mechanisms of virally induced disease as well the construction of viral vectors for therapeutic purposes.
3. Preclinical models
The development of any new therapy depends upon preclinical (animal) models that faithfully reproduce human diseases and disorders. Over the last two decades, the team has developed several of these models so that they can study and intervene in viral infection, autoimmunity, and inflammation as these conditions develop in living tissues and organs.
4. Bioinformatics
As cellular and molecular technologies have become more sophisticated, the amount of data that is generated has also grown, so the Team has adopted equally sophisticated approaches such as machine learning to assist their analysis. The result is a clearer understanding of the parameters that are most important to the physiological, immune and inflammatory processes that are being investigated.
