Modulating Immune Responses to Control Virus Infection

Understanding the interaction between viruses and the immune system is critical to our understanding of virus pathogenesis, and of disease itself. It’s also crucial for the development of effective vaccines, whether they are against viruses, bacteria, or cancer. Finally, investigating these processes improves our understanding of the underlying biology of the immune system itself, which has relevance to multiple diseases, including inflammatory and autoimmune conditions. The Viral Immunology Unit in Cardiff has a fully funded PhD to investigate the way that human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) manages to persist lifelong in healthy people, despite inducing one of the strongest immune responses to any known virus. The successful candidate will combine cutting-edge proteomics techniques, virology, and immunology, to investigate how the virus avoids being cleared by the immune system. They will then collaborate with medicinal chemists, to develop small molecule inhibitors that can prevent the virus from evading multiple arms of immunity.

HCMV is a major cause of disease in transplant recipients, and following congenital infection of a foetus. Congenital infection occurs in 1 in 200 births worldwide, and up to 20% of these babies will have lifelong disabilities such as hearing or vision loss, and intellectual disability. The burden of this virus on both society, and healthcare systems, means that improving our understanding of virus persistence, and the development of novel treatments, is a high priority. This PhD will directly target these needs. However, HCMV is also a novel vaccine candidate that as proven exceptionally efficient at inducing immune responses capable of controlling other pathogens, such as HIV, and potentially cancer. The fundamental immunology being investigated has the potential to improve our understanding of why HCMV is such an effective vaccine vector, leading to enhanced design of vaccines against multiple diseases.

Please apply via the Cardiff University website: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/applying/how-to-apply

Informal queries can be emailed to Dr Richard Stanton ([Email Address Removed]). For more information on our research group, please visit
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/126743-stanton-richard