Alex Mentzer

My research is focussed upon identifying the genetic factors responsible for the observed variation in response to all commonly used vaccines. This is important because a substantial proportion of individuals do not respond to vaccines such as those against measles and hepatitis B virus and it is known that human genetic variation is the main reason for this failure. We have developed a multi-national consortium entitled VaccGene which will use powerful modern genetic approaches to incorporate data from many thousands of individuals which will help identify the genetic variants associated with the variation in vaccine response and vaccine failure.

I qualified in Medicine from University College London in 2008 and my background is as a trainee in General Medicine with a focus on Infectious Disease. I gained significant experience in coordinating and undertaking large complex human genetic studies working with Professor Chris Mathew at King’s College London before joining the Hill laboratory in 2012.

Supervisor: Professor Adrian Hill

Collaborators:

Professor Georg Holländer, Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford, UK

Professor Alison Elliott, MRC/Uganda Virus Research Institute, Uganda

Dr Manj Sandhu, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK

Professor Shabir Madhi, Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, South Africa

Professor Phil Cooper, St George’s Medical School, UK

Professor Bill Petri, University of Virginia, USA

Dr Branwen Hennig, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Key Publications

Mentzer AJ, O'Connor D, Pollard AJ, Hill AV; Searching for the human genetic factors standing in the way of universally effective vaccines; Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2015;370(1671). pii: 20140341

Mentzer A and Jacobs M; A mass in the liver; BMJ 2013; 346:f2036

Wellcome Trust Case-Control Consortium; Host-microbe interactions have shaped the genetic architecture of inflammatory bowel disease Nature 2012;491(7422):119-24

Mentzer A, Perry M, Fitzgerald N, Barrington S, Siddiqui A, Kulasegaram R; Is it all cerebral toxoplasmosis?; Lancet 2012; 379(9812):286

Mentzer A, Karalliedde J, Williams H, Guzder R and Kulasegaram R, Backache with fever: a unique presentation of advanced HIV infection, J AIDS and Clin Research 2010; 1:104

Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, Genome-wide association study of CNVs in 16,000 cases of eight common diseases and 3,000 shared controls, Nature 2010;464(7289):713-20