Areas of interest

COVID-19 Influenza Pneumonia

Research group

Viral Immunity and Immunopathology

Biography

Dr Rebecca Ambrose is a postdoctoral scientist in the fields of cell biology and host-pathogen interactions. She completed her PhD in virology at La Trobe University in 2013 under the supervision of Professor Jason Mackenzie.

Following a short postdoctoral stint at the University of Melbourne, she moved to the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong as an OCE Postdoctoral Fellow. At CSIRO, she played a fundamental role in the team that discovered the new human gene, C6orf106. C6orf106 acts by switching off the innate immune response through blocking the production of type I interferons and the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumour necrosis factor, two factors essential in our body’s fight against infectious disease.

In 2018, Dr Ambrose joined the Host-Pathogen Interactions group in the Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases at Hudson Institute with Dr Jaclyn Pearson.

Dr Ambrose’s research is primarily driven towards understanding how intracellular host-pathogen interactions contribute to disease pathology and how this can be manipulated for therapeutic purposes. Her work has characterised the viral manipulation of the ER stress response to benefit virus replication, and uncovered a novel link between stress signalling and innate immune responses. Her current studies investigate the role of intracellular stress pathways in the gastrointestinal tract during bacterial and viral infections.