Research in a Nutshell

Donald  Davidson describes his research on the physiological importance and therapeutic potential of host defence peptides in protection against bacterial and viral infections.

Julia Dorin describes how Defensins are a family of small proteins (peptides), important in innate immunity that help protect us from infection. In addition to direct pathogen killing they have additional functions in immunity and a novel function in male fertility. Understanding how these molecules work will lead to new therapeutic avenues of research.

Sarah Howie describes her groups research on women's response to vaccination against the cancer causing type of papillomavirus.

Philippa Saunders describes her research on how the sex steroid hormones oestrogen and testosterone play a key role in regulating our fertility, our moods, our bones, our immune systems and disorders such as cancer.

Chris Gregory describes how cell birth and cell death are normally kept in balance in our tissues but, in cancer, imbalances favouring expansion of cell populations occur. His research investigates the underlying mechanisms and, in particular, how dying tumour cells can drive expansion of malignant cell populations. 

Steve Jenkins describes his groups research on how tissue macrophages are generated and controlled in order to understand how to they can be manipulated during inflammatory disease.

David Kluth describes how macrophages genetically modified to express heme-oxygenase-1 (HO-1) reduce experimental acute kidney injury (AKI). Furthermore drugs such as heme arginate, which up-regulate, HO-1 can protect from AKI and are now being tested in renal transplantation.

Stephen Wigmore describes how his group investigate the mechanisms causing damage to organs in surgery and research techniques and new drugs to protect organs from damage in surgery and transplantation.