Understanding the fate decisions that govern memory T cell development
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Project Leader
Professor Laura Mackay+61 3 834 48016
Project Details
An effective immunological memory response is required for protection against disease throughout an individual’s lifetime. Following exposure to antigen, naïve T cells expand and differentiate to resolve an infection, after which memory T cells are formed to provide long-lasting protective immunity. The memory T cell pool can be partitioned into heterogeneous populations, each possessing different migratory and functional properties, and whose development relies on genetic regulators and environmental signals. Understanding these cell fate decisions provides an avenue to enhance immunological memory responses. Using various infection and tumour models, our group is investigating the regulatory cues and mechanisms that govern memory T cell development in different tissues, with a focus on the transcriptional networks that regulate commitment to various memory T cell lineages.