A little about me

My fascination with medical research and the immune system (the body’s defence network) started while I was in high school. My doctoral (PhD) and post-doctoral (work you do in research after you get your PhD) research has involved multiple areas of immunology (the study of the immune system) including:

• Basic immunology (the nuts and bolts of how the immune system normally works and develops)
• Tumour immunology (how your body uses the immune system to fight cancer)
• Autoimmunity (when your immune system attacks your own body)
• Vaccine immunology (how vaccines activate your immune system and help to make it prepared for future attacks)
• Infectious disease responses (how your body fights infections with bugs that can make you sick)
• Infectious disease responses (how your body fights infections with bugs that can make you sick)

In biological or life sciences, these systems rarely work in isolation. To understand the immune system, I have also had to learn about its interactions with other biological systems. For example, the way your immune system fights an infection can be inherited (controlled by genes/DNA); can be influence by your environment and how healthy you are; is different for different parts of your body (your body reacts differently to an infection in your skin compared to one in your brain) and is different for the different bugs you are infected with (your immune system reacts differently to the flu then it does to the chickenpox).

Having studied and worked in health and medical research for over a decade (that makes feel a bit old), I have often been surprised when family and friends are fascinated by information that I take for granite (ahem…granted).

This has inspired me to start this blog to share news about discoveries in health and medical research in a way that everyone can understand.