CID Weekly Seminar TODAY 12pm: Human lymph node stromal cells are able to fundamentally regulate adaptive and innate immunity

12:00 - 1:00pm, Seminar Room 1, Level 2, TRF Building

A light lunch is served prior to the seminar at 11:45am in the seminar room foyer, level 2, TRF Building.

Further information available from CID Weekly Seminar Series website [http://www.med.monash.edu.au/scs/medicine/cid/seminar-series.html]

Please note that the CID Weekly Seminar will not be held on Tuesday 19 April and Tuesday 26 April in lieu of the CID Research Retreat being held on 21 and 22 April.

Human lymph node stromal cells are able to fundamentally regulate adaptive and innate immunity, presented by Dr Anne Fletcher, Birmingham Fellow, Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Fibroblastic reticular cells found in secondary lymphoid organs are known to fundamentally regulate T and B cell immunity. Here we report that human and mouse FRCs support the survival and development of lymph node macrophages.  We also show for the first time that human FRCs regulate human T cell proliferation and activation, through 4 newly defined molecular mechanisms. When expanded ex vivo and administered to mice, human FRCs improve outcomes for autoimmune liver disease.

Anne Fletcher is a Birmingham Fellow in the Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy at the University of Birmingham, UK, where she has been a faculty member since 2014. Anne completed her PhD at Monash University in 2008, working on thymic stroma in the laboratory of Profs. Richard Boyd and Ann Chidgey. She underwent postdoctoral training in FRC biology at Harvard Medical School, courtesy of a CJ Martin fellowship, working with A/Prof Shannon Turley. Her research interests lie in studying the stromal cells that support adaptive immune responses, and this has been a fruitful niche, yielding 2 patents and 42 publications to date, published in Nature Immunology, Science Translational Medicine, Immunity and J Exp Med. She runs a research group together with her husband Kostas, examining novel interactions between fibroblastic reticular cells and other leukocytes found in secondary lymphoid organs.  Their most recent finding is that sleep is almost entirely optional, after the birth of their 2nd child 10 weeks ago.