Wed 22 Nov 14:00: CANCELLED: Unravelling the whipworm niche at the host intestinal epithelia Unfortunately, this seminar had to be cancelled. There will be a new date for it soon.
Whipworms (Trichuris spp) infect hundreds of millions of people causing trichuriasis, a major neglected disease. Whipworms are large metazoan parasites that inhabit a multi-intracellular niche within their host caecal epithelia, where they manipulate mucosal physiology and inflammation through interactions with the intestinal epithelial cells and stem cell niche. These interactions enable chronic infections where whipworms are tolerated for years; but at a mechanistic level, how they operate is not understood. My research aims to define these interactions and bring a mechanistic understanding to how they underpin whipworm invasion, colonisation, and persistence in their mucosal niche. To address this aim, my lab employs a combination of in vivo and in vitro (using caecaloids) models of Trichuris muris infection and imaging and transcriptomic analysis. Using these models, we have shown that T. muris first-stage (L1) larvae degrade mucus layers to access epithelial cells. In early syncytial tunnels, larvae are completely intracellular, woven through multiple live dividing cells. Moreover, using single-cell RNA sequencing of infected mouse caecum, we revealed that progression of infection results in cell damage and an expansion of enterocytes expressing of Isg15, potentially instigating the host immune response to the whipworm and tissue repair. Excitingly, we have now maintained whipworm-infected caecaloids for 24 days and have observed growth and moulting of whipworms up to the L4 stage at times after infection similar to those in vivo. These results suggest whipworm-infected caecaloids can successfully support the in vitro life cycle T. muris, opening new opportunities to study host intestinal epithelial interactions with whipworms through infection, while reducing the number of animals required for these studies. Collectively, our research will unravel intestinal epithelium invasion by whipworms and reveal specific host-parasite interactions that allow the whipworm to establish and persist in its multi-intracellular niche
Unfortunately, this seminar had to be cancelled. There will be a new date for it soon.
- Speaker: Dr Maria Duque-Correa - Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute - UoC
- Wednesday 22 November 2023, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Seminar Room, Tennis Court Road, Dept of Pathology..
- Series: Parasitology Seminars; organiser: Anna Protasio.
Mon 04 Dec 11:00: LMB Seminar: Power to the protein: analyse, signal and protect with bacterial superglues
A special feature of the bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes enables spontaneous amide bond formation within its surface proteins. We re-engineered this system to generate an irreversible peptide-protein interaction (SpyTag/SpyCatcher). This reaction is genetically-encodable, specific in diverse biological environments, and occurs at a rate close to the diffusion limit. Latest advances include a toolbox of modules for rapidly controlling protein architectures and interaction switchable by temperature, pH or light. We have also developed another bacterial superglue called NeissLock for covalent reaction to endogenous human proteins via an anhydride. For targeting in the GI tract, we have been engineering plant-based proteins with extreme resilience to low pH and proteases. Applications of the technologies will be discussed for hydrogen-deuterium exchange, cell therapy and vaccination, including for emerging pandemic threats.
X/Twitter account – @HowarthSci
- Speaker: Professor Mark Howarth, University of Cambridge
- Monday 04 December 2023, 11:00-12:00
- Venue: In person in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre (CB2 0QH) and via Zoom, link: https://mrc-lmb-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/95625236862?pwd=NGttT1d6ay9SWFRqUHMvRWNPdDhyZz09.
- Series: MRC LMB Seminar Series; organiser: Scientific Meetings Co-ordinator.
Mon 04 Dec 11:00: LMB Seminar: Power to the protein: analyse, signal and protect with bacterial superglues
A special feature of the bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes enables spontaneous amide bond formation within its surface proteins. We re-engineered this system to generate an irreversible peptide-protein interaction (SpyTag/SpyCatcher). This reaction is genetically-encodable, specific in diverse biological environments, and occurs at a rate close to the diffusion limit. Latest advances include a toolbox of modules for rapidly controlling protein architectures and interaction switchable by temperature, pH or light. We have also developed another bacterial superglue called NeissLock for covalent reaction to endogenous human proteins via an anhydride. For targeting in the GI tract, we have been engineering plant-based proteins with extreme resilience to low pH and proteases. Applications of the technologies will be discussed for hydrogen-deuterium exchange, cell therapy and vaccination, including for emerging pandemic threats.
X/Twitter account – @HowarthSci
- Speaker: Mark Howarth
- Monday 04 December 2023, 11:00-12:00
- Venue: In person in the Max Perutz Lecture Theatre (CB2 0QH) and via Zoom, link: https://mrc-lmb-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/95625236862?pwd=NGttT1d6ay9SWFRqUHMvRWNPdDhyZz09.
- Series: MRC LMB Seminar Series; organiser: Scientific Meetings Co-ordinator.
Wed 22 Nov 13:00: Bradford Hill Seminar – What are the Policy Levers for Impact on Health and Sustainability?
All are invited to the hybrid Bradford Hill Seminar:
What are the Policy Levers for Impact on Health and Sustainability?
Professor Jeremy A. Lauer, University of Strathclyde
Please note this will be a free hybrid seminar, with the option to attend in-person (Large Seminar Room, East Forvie Building, Forvie Site, Robinson Way, Cambridge CB2 0SR ) or virtually (via Zoom).
No registration is required to attend in person.
Register in advance to attend this seminar online at:
https://www.phs.group.cam.ac.uk/event/bh-seminar-policy-levers-impact-health-sustainability/
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
About this talk Health taxes, which build on some of the oldest taxation measures in human society, open horizons in fiscal policy that are only starting to be identified and explored. In particular, health taxes facilitate the convergence of two of our most pressing unfinished agendas: SDG3 (“Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”, including target 3.8, Universal Health Coverage) and SDG13 (“Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”). In this talk, I will present reflections on the structure inherent in these two Sustainable Development Goals, and in current approaches to achieving them, and infer a set of desirable criteria for innovative policy agendas. An emerging discussion termed “planetary health” serves as an example.
About Professor Jeremy Lauer Jeremy joined the University of Strathclyde in February 2020 as Professor of Management Science following a 25-year career (1995-2020) as an Economist with the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2017, Jeremy was asked to lead a project on health taxes at the WHO which resulted in a 2022 book, involving collaboration with over two dozen global experts, that was published by the WHO , Imperial College and World Scientific. “Health Taxes: Policy and Practice” was the first book on the economics of a health topic to published by the WHO with an endorsement by a global financial institution (The World Bank).
Prior to this, in 2016 Jeremy analysed the economics of fiscal space for health workforce expansion in lower- and lower-middle income countries, as well as the interactions between the health system and the economy, for the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth. In 2018 Jeremy was invited by Argentina to advise the G20 health ministers’ working group. Jeremy continues to accept speaking engagements at the United Nations General Assembly, and appeared as a key-note speaker at high-profile UNGA side events hosted, respectively, by Uruguay and India in 2022 and 2023.
Jeremy’s expertise includes economic evaluation, fiscal policies for health, ethics in global health, the macroeconomics of health and the health system, and the health workforce.
About the Bradford Hill seminars The Bradford Hill seminar series is the principal series of The Cambridge Population Health Sciences Partnership, in collaboration with the PHG Foundation. This comprises the Departments of Public Health & Primary Care, MRC Biostatistics Unit and MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, bringing together a multi-disciplinary partnership of academics and public health professionals. The Bradford Hill seminar programme of internationally recognised speakers covers topics of broad interest to our public health research community. It aims to transcend as well as connect the activities of our individual partners.
All are welcome at our Bradford Hill seminars.
- Speaker: Professor Jeremy A. Lauer, University of Strathclyde
- Wednesday 22 November 2023, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Large Seminar Room, East Forvie Building, Forvie Site Robinson Way Cambridge CB2 0SR..
- Series: Bradford Hill Seminars; organiser: Paul Browne.
Wed 22 Nov 16:00: Predicting in vivo metabolic vulnerabilities in Streptococcus suis using metabolic models
Streptococcus suis is an important zoonotic pathogen causing severe systemic infections in pigs as well as humans. Recent genomic evidence from large clinical isolate collections suggests that metabolism plays a key role in S. suis pathogenicity. To explore the relationship between genomic variability, metabolism, and pathogenicity in S. suis in more detail, we developed the first large-scale ensemble of strain-specific S. suis genome-scale metabolic models. In my talk, I will discuss how these models can be used to identify new metabolic vulnerabilities that are conserved across clinical isolates and relevant in vivo, thus paving the way for new treatment strategies which directly target S. suis metabolism.
Dr. Karl Kochanowski is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at IRTA -CReSA in Barcelona (Spain). His research focuses on understanding the principles of cellular metabolic regulation, and their impact on disease outcomes. During his PhD research at ETH Zurich (Switzerland), he explored the role of protein-metabolite interactions in coordinating metabolic pathway activity in Escherichia coli. During his postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco (USA), he investigated how changes in nutrient availability affect cancer cell behavior. At IRTA -CReSA, he and his team use a variety of experimental and computational systems biology approaches (e.g. high-throughput cultivation, metabolomics, and genome-scale metabolic models) to understand how cellular metabolism drives animal infections.
- Speaker: Karl Kochanowski
- Wednesday 22 November 2023, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: by zoom.
- Series: Departmental Seminar Programme, Department of Veterinary Medicine; organiser: Fiona Roby.
Wed 22 Nov 14:00: Unravelling the whipworm niche at the host intestinal epithelia
Whipworms (Trichuris spp) infect hundreds of millions of people causing trichuriasis, a major neglected disease. Whipworms are large metazoan parasites that inhabit a multi-intracellular niche within their host caecal epithelia, where they manipulate mucosal physiology and inflammation through interactions with the intestinal epithelial cells and stem cell niche. These interactions enable chronic infections where whipworms are tolerated for years; but at a mechanistic level, how they operate is not understood. My research aims to define these interactions and bring a mechanistic understanding to how they underpin whipworm invasion, colonisation, and persistence in their mucosal niche. To address this aim, my lab employs a combination of in vivo and in vitro (using caecaloids) models of Trichuris muris infection and imaging and transcriptomic analysis. Using these models, we have shown that T. muris first-stage (L1) larvae degrade mucus layers to access epithelial cells. In early syncytial tunnels, larvae are completely intracellular, woven through multiple live dividing cells. Moreover, using single-cell RNA sequencing of infected mouse caecum, we revealed that progression of infection results in cell damage and an expansion of enterocytes expressing of Isg15, potentially instigating the host immune response to the whipworm and tissue repair. Excitingly, we have now maintained whipworm-infected caecaloids for 24 days and have observed growth and moulting of whipworms up to the L4 stage at times after infection similar to those in vivo. These results suggest whipworm-infected caecaloids can successfully support the in vitro life cycle T. muris, opening new opportunities to study host intestinal epithelial interactions with whipworms through infection, while reducing the number of animals required for these studies. Collectively, our research will unravel intestinal epithelium invasion by whipworms and reveal specific host-parasite interactions that allow the whipworm to establish and persist in its multi-intracellular niche
- Speaker: Dr Maria Duque-Correa - Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute - UoC
- Wednesday 22 November 2023, 14:00-15:00
- Venue: Seminar Room, Tennis Court Road, Dept of Pathology..
- Series: Parasitology Seminars; organiser: Anna Protasio.