Infections & Immunity

The theme of the group is the reciprocal adaptation between an infectious organism and its host. The necessity to recognise and destroy invading pathogens has played a crucial role in the evolution of the immune system of both vertebrates and invertebrates. At the same time, pathogens, in particular, viruses have evolved strategies to manipulate the immune system. An efficient immune system must select the immune effector mechanism most appropriate to the biology of the pathogen. Thus the study of how pathogens control immune responses will offer novel approaches for the manipulation of the immune responses in health and disease, with novel vaccines and strategies to downregulate the immune system (e.g. inflammation) being the most obvious possibilities. Therefore, we are identifying and characterising virus host evasion genes directed towards subversion of cell biology and innate immunity. We have selected two viruses with very different lifestyles (HCMV and ASFV).