Joannah Fergusson

After studying Immunology as an undergraduate at the University of Bristol, I undertook a DPhil on the Wellcome Trust Infection, Immunology and Translational Medicine programme at the University of Oxford. Here I joined the lab of Prof. Paul Klenerman characterising Mucosal Associated Invariant T (MAIT) cells and other T cells with shared transcriptional and functional phenotypes. After obtaining my DPhil I moved to the University of Amsterdam to research Innate Lymphoid Cells as part of Professor Hergen Spits’ lab. This research also took me into the fundamental biology of other innate cells, particularly dendritic cells. From there I joined the Infectious Diseases disease biology team at Immunocore, establishing infectious disease models to investigate novel T cell therapies targeting HIV and Hepatitis B. This work supported the entry of a Hepatitis B-targeting molecule into first-in-human trials. 

In 2021 I joined the Vaccine Formulation and Adjuvants Group led by Dr Anita Milicic where, together with Prof. Mark Coles and Dr. Calliope Dendrou, we are studying the earliest events in inflammation through support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Using a model of adjuvant-stimulated inflammation in ex vivo human secondary lymphoid organs, and utilising single cell transcriptomics and multiplexed imaging, we aim to map both the spatial and temporal events initiating inflammation.