Research group
Innate Immunity
The Innate Immunity research group conducts interdisciplinary research in the role of innate immune cells in human health and disease.
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About
Our investigators are co-located on level E of the South Academic Block at University Hospital Southampton. The group has numerous collaborative projects, and diverse expertise including lymphocyte subsets such as Natural Killer and CD1-responsive T cells, macrophage and fibroblast biology, proteases and bioinformatic/multiomic approaches. Experimental approaches include analysis of patient-derived tissue, advanced cellular modelling, in vivo models and translational studies spanning a range of diseases, including infection, inflammation, wound healing, cancer, metabolic and lung disease.
People, projects and publications
People
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Doctor Andres Vallejo Pulido
Associate ProfessorSingle-cell transcriptomics
Systems immunology
Accepting applications from PhD students -
Doctor Grace Bartlett
Research FellowPatient-derived immunotherapeutics
Immunopathogenic and inflammatory disease
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Doctor Hannah Schiff
Senior Clinical Lecturer in RespiratoryRespiratory Infection
Tuberculosis
Non-tuberculosis mycobacteria
Email: H.Schiff@soton.ac.uk -
Doctor Liku Tezera
Senior Research Fellow- Physiologically relevant in vitro models for chronic bacterial infections that cap
Accepting applications from PhD studentsEmail: L.Tezera@soton.ac.uk -
Doctor Matthew Blunt
Associate ProfessorAccepting applications from PhD students -
Doctor Michaela Reichmann
Associate Professor in Respiratory MedicineTuberculosis, Sarcoidosis and other granulomatous disease
Accepting applications from PhD students -
Professor Paul Elkington
Professor of Respiratory Med. & Director of the Institute for Medical Innovationtuberculosis
immunopathology
diagnosis
Accepting applications from PhD students -
Doctor Salah Mansour
Associate Professor-
Unconventional T cells and lipid antigen recognition in human disease
Accepting applications from PhD students -
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Professor Salim Khakoo
Professor of Hepatology -
Doctor Sylvia Pender
Associate Professor
Research projects
Publications
XPO1 inhibition sensitises CLL cells to NK cell mediated cytotoxicity and overcomes HLA-E expression
Jack G. Fisher, Amber D.P. Doyle, Lara V. Graham, Shreyanshi Sonar, Ben Sale, Isla Henderson, Luis Del Rio, Peter W.M. Johnson, Yosef Landesman, Mark S. Cragg, Francesco Forconi, Christopher J. Walker, Salim I. Khakoo & Matthew D. Blunt,
2023, Leukemia, 37(10), 2036-2049
Type: article
Michaela T. Reichmann, Liku Bekele Tezera, Andres Vallejo Pulido, Milica Vukmirovic, Rui Xiao, James Reynolds, Sanjay Jogai, Susan Wilson, Benjamin Marshall, Mark Jones, Alasdair Leslie, Jeanine M. D'Armiento, Naftali Kaminski, Marta Polak & Paul Elkington,
2021, Journal of Clinical Investigation, 131(15), 1-16
DOI: 10.1172/JCI148136
Type: article
Salim Khakoo, Pauline E Rettman, Matthew Blunt, Rebecca Fulton, Andres Vallejo Pulido, Leidy Bastidas Legarda, Laura Espana-Serrano, Marta Polak, Aymen Al-Shamkhani & Christelle Retiere,
2021, Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, 9(5)
Type: article
Mohammed M. Naiyer, Sorcha A. Cassidy, Andrea Magri, Vanessa Cowton, Kevin Chen, Salah Mansour, Hariklia Kranidioti, Berenice Mbiribindi , Pauline Rettman, Scott Harris, Liam J. Fanning, Arend Mulder, Franz H.J. Claas, Andrew D. Davidson, Arvind H. Patel, Marco A. Purbhoo & Salim I. Khakoo,
2017, Science immunology, 2(15)
Type: article
Integrating bioinformatic analysis of clinical samples and advanced cell culture to understand tuberculosis immunopathology and find new host-directed therapeutic targets to treat tuberculosis.
Dr Blunt leads a research team focused on natural killer (NK) cells, novel cancer immunotherapies and haematological malignancies.
Dr Vallejo specialises in the development of cutting-edge technologies for single cell and spatial transcriptomics with a focus on infectious diseases.
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- A missing link between continental shelves and the deep sea: Have we underestimated the importance of land-detached canyons?
- A study of rolling contact fatigue in electric vehicles (EVs)
- Acoustic monitoring of forest exploitation to establish community perspectives of sustainable hunting
- Acoustic sensing and characterisation of soil organic matter
- Advancing intersectional geographies of diaspora-led development in times of multiple crises
- Aero engine fan wake turbulence – Simulation and wind tunnel experiments
- Against Climate Change (DACC): improving the estimates of forest fire smoke emissions
- All-in-one Mars in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) system and life-supporting using non-thermal plasma
- An electromagnetic study of the continent-ocean transition southwest of the UK
- An investigation of the relationship between health, home and law in the context of poor and precarious housing, and complex and advanced illness
- Antibiotic resistance genes in chalk streams
- Being autistic in care: Understanding differences in care experiences including breakdowns in placements for autistic and non-autistic children
- Biogeochemical cycling in the critical coastal zone: Developing novel methods to make reliable measurements of geochemical fluxes in permeable sediments
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- British Black Lives Matter: The emergence of a modern civil rights movement
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- Carbon storage in reactive rock systems: determining the coupling of geo-chemo-mechanical processes in reactive transport
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- Cost of living in modern and fossil animals
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- Ecological role of offshore artificial structures
- Effect of embankment and subgrade weathering on railway track performance
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- Electrochemical sensing of the sea surface microlayer
- Engagement with nature among children from minority ethnic backgrounds
- Enhancing UAV manoeuvres and control using distributed sensor arrays
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- Environmental and genetic determinants of Brassica crop damage by the agricultural pest Diamondback moth
- Estimating marine mammal abundance and distribution from passive acoustic and biotelemetry data
- Evolution of symbiosis in a warmer world
- Examining evolutionary loss of calcification in coccolithophores
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- Explaining process, pattern and dynamics of marine predator hotspots in the Southern Ocean
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- Exploring the potential electrical activity of gut for healthcare and wellbeing
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- Facilitating forest restoration sustainability of tropical swidden agriculture
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- How do antimicrobial peptides alter T cell cytokine production?
- How do calcifying marine organisms grow? Determining the role of non-classical precipitation processes in biogenic marine calcite formation
- How do neutrophils alter T cell metabolism?
- How well can we predict future changes in biodiversity using machine learning?
- Hydrant dynamics for acoustic leak detection in water pipes
- If ‘Black Lives Matter’, do ‘Asian Lives Matter’ too? Impact trajectories of organisation activism on wellbeing of ethnic minority communities
- Illuminating luciferin bioluminescence in dinoflagellates
- Imaging quantum materials with an XFEL
- Impact of neuromodulating drugs on gut microbiome homeostasis
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- Improving subsea navigation using environment observations for long term autonomy
- Information theoretic methods for sensor management
- Installation effect on the noise of small high speed fans
- Integrated earth observation mapping change land sea
- Interconnections of past greenhouse climates
- Investigating IgG cell depletion mechanisms
- Is ocean mixing upside down? How mixing processes drive upwelling in a deep-ocean basin
- Landing gear aerodynamics and aeroacoustics
- Lightweight gas storage: real-world strategies for the hydrogen economy
- Machine learning for multi-robot perception
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- Marine ecosystem responses to past climate change and its oceanographic impacts
- Mechanical effects in the surf zone - in situ electrochemical sensing
- Microfluidic cell isolation systems for sepsis
- Migrant entrepreneurship, gender and generation: context and family dynamics in small town Britain
- Miniaturisation in fishes: evolutionary and ecological perspectives
- Modelling high-power fibre laser and amplifier stability
- Modelling soil dewatering and recharge for cost-effective and climate resilient infrastructure
- Modelling the evolution of adaptive responses to climate change across spatial landscapes
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- New high-resolution observations of ocean surface current and winds from innovative airborne and satellite measurements
- New perspectives on ocean photosynthesis
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- Ocean circulation and the Southern Ocean carbon sink
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- Ocean physics and ecology: can robots disentangle the mix?
- Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal: Assessing the utility of coastal enhanced weathering
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- Optical fibre sensing for acoustic leak detection in buried pipelines
- Optimal energy transfer in nonlinear systems
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- Partnership dissolution and re-formation in later life among individuals from minority ethnic communities in the UK
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- Preventing disease by enhancing the cleaning power of domestic water taps using sound
- Quantifying riparian vegetation dynamics and flow interactions for Nature Based Solutions using novel environmental sensing techniques
- Quantifying the response and sensitivity of tropical forest carbon sinks to various drivers
- Quantifying variability in phytoplankton electron requirements for carbon fixation
- Resilient and sustainable steel-framed building structures
- Resolving Antarctic meltwater events in Southern Ocean marine sediments and exploring their significance using climate models
- Robust acoustic leak detection in water pipes using contact sound guides
- Silicon synapses for artificial intelligence hardware
- Smart photon delivery via reconfigurable optical fibres
- The Gulf Stream control of the North Atlantic carbon sink
- The Mayflower Studentship: a prestigious fully funded PhD studentship in bioscience
- The calming effect of group living in social fishes
- The duration of ridge flank hydrothermal exchange and its role in global biogeochemical cycles
- The evolution of symmetry in echinoderms
- The impact of early life stress on neuronal enhancer function
- The oceanic fingerprints on changing monsoons over South and Southeast Asia
- The role of iron in nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis in changing polar oceans
- The role of singlet oxygen signaling in plant responses to heat and drought stress
- Time variability on turbulent mixing of heat around melting ice in the West Antarctic
- Triggers and Feedbacks of Climate Tipping Points
- Uncovering the drivers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease progression using patient derived organoids
- Understanding recent land-use change in Snowdonia to plan a sustainable future for uplands: integrating palaeoecology and conservation practice
- Understanding the role of cell motility in resource acquisition by marine phytoplankton
- Understanding the structure and engagement of personal networks that support older people with complex care needs in marginalised communities and their ability to adapt to increasingly ‘digitalised’ health and social care
- Unpicking the Anthropocene in the Hawaiian Archipelago
- Unraveling oceanic multi-element cycles using single cell ionomics
- Unravelling southwest Indian Ocean biological productivity and physics: a machine learning approach
- Using acoustics to monitor how small cracks develop into bursts in pipelines
- Using machine learning to improve predictions of ocean carbon storage by marine life
- Vulnerability of low-lying coastal transportation networks to natural hazards
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