Sterile inflammation as a determinant of adaptive immunity (2013–2016)
Abstract:
Inflammation in response to injury is a key component driving the physiolological adaptive immune response. The proposed research aims to undertand how tissue damage following physical injury, as opposed to infection, regulates the immune response to self and non-self antigens presented at the site of the physical injury. Injuries are common and the resultant inflammation can either help healing, prolong local tissue damage, or lead to autoreactive immune responses. We understand some part of how the response to non-infectious tissue damage is regulated through the inflammasome, and wish to establish how variability in the inflammasome response may either protect us from, or alternatively promote, self damaging immune responses.
