Re-directing the immune system from self-harm to tolerance in autoimmunity

Over the past years, our scientific and clinical research team has pursued basic discovery and preclinical research into the skin autoimmune disease psoriasis. Current treatments, although effective in clearing the skin phenotype, require recurrent patient presentation at the clinic to control their autoimmune condition and do little to avoid disease progression towards psoriatic arthritis. We believe that next-generation treatments could promote long-term remission by re-educating the immune system to cease the attack of the body's own cells. Our next steps, and the subject of this project, are to interrogate how we can manipulate skin-resident CD8 memory T cells in order to achieve tolerance towards peptides that, when previously encountered, would elicit a cytotoxic and pro-inflammatory immune response. If you have a keen interest in immunology, this exciting project could expose you to a wide range of techniques (flow cytometry, proteomics, animal experimentation) and give you a diverse and multidisciplined expertise in T cell immunology, immunopeptidomics, and translational research with a possible outcome that could positively impact the lives of one in fifty people worldwide suffering from psoriasis and its associated co-morbidities.