You can follow Team GB's progress here: https://21stuwhworlds.com/
Good luck to Tom, who has set of to Gold Coast, Australia to compete in GB men's elite team in the Underwater Hockey World Championships 2023!
You can follow Team GB's progress here: https://21stuwhworlds.com/
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Our new arginase 2 transgenic line has been published in DMM. Congratulations to all the Elks lab members and authors that were involved. It's been a long time in the making and the manuscript looks great!
We had the first in-person meeting of our Marie Curie ITN network (INFLANET) in Heidelberg Germany. It was fantastic to meet the early career scientists for the first time and catch up with the network PIs. And Heidelberg is a lovely city, thanks to colleagues there for organising!
We had great fun at the 2022 Bateson Away day. Really fantastic to catch up with the excellent work colleagues are doing since pre-pandemic (and of course great to catch up more generally in the pub afterwards!).
We are delighted to have a fully funded PhD studentship available from the NC3Rs entitled "Modulating macrophage phenotypes during infection in zebrafish", co-supervised by Professor Endre Kiss-Toth. Please find the advert here:
https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/modulating-macrophage-phenotypes-during-infection-in-zebrafish/?p139674 The deadline for applications is the 31st January 2022. In 2021 we were lucky enough to move into brand new, purpose built labs, shared with Simon Johnston's group. The suite of facilities includes a main lab, a zebrafish infection lab, a microscope room and student/PI offices, and was generously funded by the Wolfson Foundation. We moved during one of the 2021 Covid lockdowns and it was a huge effort from all involved (thank you!), but we are now fully settled into The Wolfson Laboratories for Zebrafish Models of Infection ready for 2022!
Well done to Hannah Isles and all authors for the publication of our new manuscript in eLife on neutrophil swarming!
On Friday 10th July we held the Zebrafish Infection and Immunity 2020 (ZIIUK2020) online. We had 80 registrants and a full day of excellent research talks and discussion. It was a fantastic day and felt as close to an in-person conference as we could get. Thanks to all those who gave fantastic talks, especially to our exceptional keynotes Maria Forlenza and David Gurevich. Congratulations to the talk prize winners (kindly sponsored by Nikon and Techniplast), and we're especially proud of our very own Ffion Hammond who took home the 1st place talk prize!
We've had a busy COVID shutdown period and have had a few papers out, including a research paper on comorbidity models and a review in The FEBS Journal, alongside collaborative papers (see publications tab above). Well done to all the authors, it's great to see these out!
Congratulations to Gillian Tomlinson and colleagues in UCL, for the development of an excellent piece of software (Quantifish) that was published in Scientific Reports today. It was great to be involved in this work!
It's that time of year again... when 4 dynamic labs (Johnston, Evans, Elks and King) meet to discuss all things phagocytes! We had an excellent day this year, with a 2 hour (slightly muddy) walk followed by science talks from the newbies and final years and an extremely difficult team building activity involving Lego (thanks Jason!). Followed, of course, by a couple of beers and a nice meal. Fun times, thanks for a great day everyone!
Sharpening the blunted neutrophil response to antimicrobial resistant fungal infection
Life-threatening invasive fungal infection is a major health problem in the immunocompromised, and emerging drug resistance is a major threat to global health. Fungal pathogens, such as Candida, Cryptococcus and Aspergillus, are experts at immune evasion. Neutrophils - the most abundant white blood cell in humans - are vital in immunity to fungal infection, and optimising their function is a novel and powerful strategy to combat infection. The role of the neutrophils in fungal infection has been well studied in vitro but is difficult to translate to in vivo models of infection. We have shown that if properly activated, neutrophils are very effective at controlling fungal infection, highlighting their potential as therapeutic targets. We are especially interested in low oxygen (hypoxia) signalling (via the transcription factor Hif-a). Infection sites are profoundly hypoxic and neutrophils have evolved to function in this environment. Targeting Hif-a therapeutically to activate neutrophils could be used against fungal infection, subverting antimicrobial resistance. You will use the transparent zebrafish embryo infected with Candida albicans and Cryptococcus neoformans to understand how hypoxia signalling might be targeted to treat fungal infection. Using zebrafish models we already know that the two Hif-a variants, Hif-1a and Hif-2a, have opposing effects on neutrophil control of bacterial infection. In this project we aim to understand whether neutrophils can be molecularly ‘tuned’, by modulating Hif-1a and Hif-2a appropriately, to better kill invading fungi. Using cutting-edge molecular biology and fluorescence microscopy techniques you will address: 1. How Hif-a signalling is protective against fungal infection 2. How targeting different Hif-a variants can fine-tune neutrophil behaviour during fungal infection This project synergises the expertise of a number of internationally leading groups at Sheffield Medical School, using techniques that are well-established in our groups that have so far produced exciting results and require an enthusiastic PhD student to take forwards. You will join a young and vibrant research lab (http://elkslab.weebly.com/) and you will be well trained in molecular biology and microscopy techniques, as well as writing and presenting your science. The research will take place in a newly refurbished bespoke zebrafish infection laboratory. This is an exciting new project in collaboration with Alison Condliffe, Violaine See (Liverpool), and Simon Johnston labs. See details below. Closing date is the 6th January 2020 https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/mrc-dimen-doctoral-training-partnership-sharpening-the-blunted-neutrophil-response-to-antimicrobial-resistant-fungal-infection/?p113848 Our new paper is out in Frontiers in Immunology, looking at the induction of macrophage Tnfa after hypoxia/Hif-1alpha stabilisation. Well done to Amy for all her hard work! You can find the paper here:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2019.02321/full Well done to Hannah for getting her work on retention signalling published in Frontiers in Immunology! Thanks to all co-authors for all their hard work, especially Steve and his lab members!
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