Dr Carolien van de Sandt wins ASI International Travel Award

Dr Carolien van de Sandt (Dept. Microbiology and Immunology) has been awarded the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology (ASI) Postdoctoral International Travel Award to attend the 2019 International Congress of Immunology in Beijing as a symposium speaker.

Dr van de Sandt will present on the Dynamics of CD8+ T cell immunity to influenza viruses across human lifespan to scientists in the Immunity to viruses session.

“The presentation will outline the work in Professor Katherine Kedzierska’s Laboratory on T cell immunity and include new data from my own research on the T cell receptor repertoire across the human lifespan,” Dr van de Sandt said.

The Kedzierska Laboratory studies how our immune system develops a strong protective memory response against the influenza virus early in life and how we lose this protective memory when we get older.

A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms will help design better vaccine strategies for both young and old individuals.

“As the field of viral immunology is highly competitive and rapidly changing, it will be of great benefit to myself to gain exposure to the latest ideas, results and techniques and present my own findings in this area.”

The award will also allow Dr van de Sandt to visit collaborators in the Netherlands working in the field of tissue resident T cells at Sanquin and influenza at the ErasmusMC.

“These visits will provide me with a great opportunity to establish new collaborations and showcase our cutting-edge human immunology work on T-cell receptor repertoire,” she said.

“Attending the ICI as an invited speaker and my visit to Sanquin and the ErasmusMC will greatly strengthen the next phase of my scientific career to become an independent researcher.”

Originally published by the Doherty Institute.