Our immune system is constantly confronted with the decision of whether to launch an immune response or not. On one hand, these responses are critical for repelling pathogens or cancers. On the other hand, they are detrimental when directed against our own tissues to drive autoimmune disease.

Our laboratory studies how the immune system makes these decisions. We are interested in how cell death is involved in immunological tolerance and responses to infection. By understanding the 'choreography' of immune cell death, we seek to design better treatments for immune disorders and cancer.

Research interest

Many mechanisms have evolved to ensure that the immune system does not attack our own tissues; a property referred to as immunological tolerance. The main goal of our team is to understand how to modify tolerance mechanisms to create new therapeutic avenues for treating cancer and autoimmune diseases.

A major project focuses on understanding how defects in cell death and immune homeostasis engender disease. We employ novel pre-clinical models, mass cytometry (CyTOF), lightsheet and in vivo multiphoton imaging approaches to address how these processes shape the development and function of T cells in health and disease