Prof William Horsnell; University of Exeter
My research interests address 1: how mothers’ immunity can shape offspring immunity and 2: how our exposure to one type of disease alters our ability to control a different disease . This work focuses on immunity to range of mucosal infectious (e.g. helminths, bacteria, viruses and fungi) and non-infectious (e.g. allergy) diseases. In relation to maternal transfer pf immunity I am particularly interested in how mothers can provide offspring with protection against infection through mechanisms other than passive transfer of antibody.
It is well established that mothers can protect their offspring from infection via passive transfer of antibody in utero and via breastfeeding. This protection is very important for controlling many early life infections but declines once mothers stop providing offspring antibody in utero and/or via nursing. It is however known that offspring can acquire protection from infection that persists after the breaking of the mother child dyad and this appears to be independent of antibody. This longer protection often associates with offspring acquiring cellular immunity to infection from their mothers. A mechanism that can enable this is maternal microchimerism (MMc): the transfer and tolerance of mothers cells in offspring. This seminar will address our past and ongoing work addressing how MMc can provide offspring with long lasting cellular immunity to infection.
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