Cellular Immunology

We seek to understand the roles of the many different cell types that make up the immune system, with a focus on unconventional and innate-like T cells.

Using tools such as flow cytometry, recombinant protein technology and transcriptome analysis, our researchers can learn how particular types of immune cells function in healthy individuals and compare them to how they act during infection, autoimmunity, allergy and cancer.

Our group is led by Dr Dan Pellicci, who has spent the last 15 years working on innate-like and unconventional T cells; a large, yet relatively understudied, population of immune cells that shows a greater similarity between individuals compared to ‘conventional’ helper and killer T cells.

In particular, we look at T cells that respond to non-peptide antigens presented by CD1 molecules, and mucosal-associated invariant T cells (MAIT) cells, which respond to bacterial riboflavin metabolites presented by MR1.

Cellular immunology team

Image: Cellular Immunology team.