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    Imperial College London
     National Heart and Lung Institute
     Sir Alexander Fleming Building
     London
    SW7 2AZ
    Telephone : +44 (0)207 5943184
    Email :

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  • Professor Tracy Hussell leads a vibrant research group studying immunity and pathology to influenza virus infection and secondary bacterial complications. She is a principal investigator in the MRC/Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma and in the Centre for Respiratory Infections. She secretary of the RSM Clinical Immunology and Allergy Section and Education Secretary and Trustee of the BSI.0
  • The threshold above which antigen presenting cells are activated is dictated by site specific factors to ensure that inappropriate reactivity does not continually occur in environmentally exposed or sensitive sites. In the lung we and others have defined an innate immune rheostat that limits airway macrophage and dendritic cell activity via predominantly epithelial-derived IL-10, TGFb and CD200. The position of this rheostat, however, is likely to be adjusted by past inflammatory episodes, polymorphisms in regulatory receptors such as CD200R and IL-10R, environmental antigen conditioning, other underlying chronic lung conditions and possibly age. This person-specific threshold is likely to explain why some respond inappropriately to environmental allergens or experience exacerbations of asthma or COPD more frequently than others; in this case the threshold for activation is set too low. On the other hand a high threshold can be equally damaging as show for lung bacterial super-infection and sepsis following influenza. This high threshold may occur spontaneously, through as yet unidentified regulatory receptor polymorphisms, or as a consequence of an attempt to return the lung to its normal state. We will present evidence that prior infections modify the development of asthma but also that established asthma modifies suceptibility to bacterial pneumonia.

MRC & Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma

 
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Last modified: 04 December 2009 11:38
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