Project: Functional antibody responses in the control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Chung group
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection is a global health crisis, causing over 1.5 million deaths annually. New efficacious vaccine strategies, immunotherapies and improved diagnostic technologies are urgently needed. The role of antibodies in Mtb is underexplored, although rare studies suggest that antibodies may contribute to Mtb control. Thus this project aims to profile functional antibodies from patients with different clinical Mtb disease outcomes. Ultimately, these studies may guide the development of future Mtb-vaccines, immunotherapies and provide insights towards more effective diagnostics.
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Chung group
2 vacancies
Antibodies are a vital component of the immune response required for protection and control of infectious diseases including COVID-19, HIV, Tuberculosis and malaria. Beyond the traditional mechanism of neutralisation of pathogens (inhibition of the pathogen from infecting a cell), antibodies can act as key beacons - instructing the innate immune system on how to attack and eliminate pathogens. The Chung group aims to apply cutting-edge high throughput experimental technologies, matched with computational analysis, to examine how these functional antibodies work, which will provide important insights to improve antibody-based vaccines and therapies.
Chung group Current Projects
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Mapping post-vaccination antibody subclass responses to SARS-CoV-2 variants
Honours
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Functional antibody responses in the control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science
Research degrees at the Doherty Institute are administered by the University of Melbourne.