Eröffnung der Vortragsreihe LIFE SCIENCES mit dem Schwerpunktthema „Spatial Immunobiology in Health“ durch Dr. Ryan Thwaites (National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London)

The human upper airway mucosa is the portal of entry and site of first replication for respiratory viruses. The immune response in this compartment plays a correspondingly key role in determining whether a virus is contained and eliminated, or able to enter, replicate, and initiate disease. Despite this importance, the mucosal immune events associated with protection and disease following exposure to respiratory viruses are understudied relative to responses in peripheral blood. My research seeks to identify protective and harmful features of mucosal immunity in humans, spanning studies of natural infections and controlled human infection models (CHIMs) with viruses and mucosal vaccines. Experimental infection studies (including RSV and SARS-CoV-2) and mucosal vaccine challenge studies (including live-attenuated influenza vaccine) have demonstrated the compartmentalisation of antibody responses between the airway mucosa and peripheral blood. These studies have additionally demonstrated early immune signatures associated with these different infection and humoral immune outcomes. Recent works have greatly expanded the ability to perform functional assessments of mucosal antibodies, including measures of pathogen neutralisation and Fc-dependent effector functions, features that are critical to immunity. By using coordinated sampling techniques and assays across natural and experimental infection studies we can begin to understand the relative contributions of different arms and compartments of immunity towards protection from severe respiratory viral infections.