C-TIL Research

Current research areas:

Kidney immunity – decoding the development, function and interactions of immune cells in the human kidney in health and disease. We have a particular interest in how tissue immune cells work with epithelial cells to defend the kidney from infection but play a pathogenic role in autoimmune diseases like lupus nephritis and in allograft rejection.

Bladder immunity – understanding the immune-epithelial-fibroblast cell circuits working during homeostasis and bladder infection. Prostate immunity – we are studying immune cells in human prostate to generate an atlas-type resource and to find out how these cells become perturbed in cancer.

Humoral immunity in tissues – analysis of B cells and plasma cells (cells responsible for antibody production) within different organs, including the meninges and gastrointestinal tract.

Macrophage function in tissues – profile the different types of macrophages that are present in organs and their role in tissue defence and in organ homeostasis.

Immune responses in COVID-19 – We are studying immune cells in peripheral blood, nasal and lung tissues to try and understand how the immune system responds to SARS-CoV2 and how this might contribute to pathology.

Differing immune reponses discovered in asymptomatic cases versus those with severe COVID-19

Video generated with dandelion, a single-cell BCR-sequencing analysis software.