New strategies to selectively target interferon signaling in inflammatory diseases

Research area

| innate immunity, biochemistry

Keywords

| innate immunity, biochemistry, immunology interferon, signal transduction, inflammatory disease, inflammation, drug development.

Research group

| Regulation of Interferon and Innate Signalling, Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases

Suitability

| PhD/Doctorate, Honours

Contact supervisors at any time

Professor Paul Hertzog
e: paul.hertzog@hudson.org.au

Dr Nicole de Weerd

Project description

The interferon (IFN) family of cytokines activate their many functions via binding to the cell surface receptor components: IFNAR1 and IFNAR2 which transduce signals. What limits the therapeutic use of these fabulous proteins against infections and cancer is the side effects including the induction ofc unregulated inflammation.

This project will target a specific pathway we discovered mediated by the soluble form of IFNAR2 which drives only the proinflammatory actions of these cytokines, not the protective antiviral and anticancer signals. This will involve the development of “biological” drugs, structural modelling and AI, organ-on-a-chip disease modelling, protein chemistry and cell-based assays. Publications: Nature Immunology2013 14(9) 901-907 and J. Biol. Chem. 2017 292 (18) 7554-7565.

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