WEHI Special ID2 Seminar hosted by Associate Professor Chris Tonkin

Eva Frickel, PhD

Institute of Microbiology and Infection, School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Human GBP1 controls pathogens and is regulated by PIM1 to limit bystander cell self-damage

Davis Auditorium

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

Eva studied Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Universities of Freiburg (Germany) and Uppsala (Sweden) before pursuing a PhD at the ETH Zurich (Switzerland) under the guidance of Prof Ari Helenius. During her PhD Eva researched enzymatic activities and interactions of protein folding chaperones of the cell’s endoplasmic reticulum. Cellular protein folding and degradation machineries are important during antigen processing in immunity to infections. Eva joined Prof Hidde Ploegh’s lab at Whitehead/MIT (USA) as a postdoc, employing novel chemical and technological approaches to work on immunity to the parasite Toxoplasma gondii.  She identified CD8 T cell epitopes and developed murine models to study endogenous Toxoplasma-specific CD8 T cells. She also studied a novel class of enzymes, the murine guanylate binding proteins (GBPs) as players to open the compartment Toxoplasma resides in, the vacuole, giving antigens a route to immune presentation. In her own lab at NIMR/Crick in London (UK), Eva continued to define CD8 antigen affinity and how it shapes T cell responses.

Eva now focusses on how infected cells target intracellular pathogen vacuoles in general -  both during bacterial as well as parasitic infection, and she exclusively studies human cells. Eva moved her lab to the University of Birmingham (UK) in 2020. Bacterial and parasitic infections cause the production of the cytokine interferon-gamma which triggers broad anti-microbial activities active in macrophages, but also in non-immune cells. While these pathways limit microbial replication and coordinate host cell death in infected cells, it has become clear that the understanding of their function in uninfected bystander cells is limited. Eva is interested in delineating inflammation-induced mechanisms that distinguish foreign- versus self-membranes and how these pathways operate in infections, but also in general inflammatory conditions.

All Welcome!