-

About

Our lab uses a multi-disciplinary approach to dissect the cellular interactions that underpin immune protection and disease. Our major interests are:
– Identifying factors that promote cell migration, and determining how these factors influence responses to acute and chronic infections, and successful vaccination.
– Determining the spatial niches where cell differentiation decisions occur during immune responses.
– Identifying novel mechanisms that resolve inflammation to limit immune pathology and promote life-long memory (particularly related to COVID-19).
– Transcriptionally dissecting the cellular conversations that mediate flexible immune responses and understanding how these are altered in asthma and lupus.
– Identifying pathways to target these processes as treatments for infectious and inflammatory diseases and to strategise vaccine design.

Systems we use include:
– Advanced imaging methods including whole 3D organ imaging and time-lapse imaging of cell location and migration decisions.
– Diverse infection models (viral, bacterial, helminth and fungal) and healthy and patient tissue samples to study flexible immune responses and animal models of inflammatory diseases.
– Development and analysis of reporter and conditional knockout models to identify how new factors regulate immune protection and memory responses.
– Global gene expression profiling of cells based on cellular interactions and positioning during immune responses.

Publications

Selected publications from A/Prof Joanna Groom

Cooper L, Xu H, Polmear J, Kealy L, Szeto C, Pang ES, Gupta M, Kirn A, Taylor JJ, Jackson KJL, Broomfield BJ, Nguyen A, Gago da Graça C, La Gruta N, Utzschneider DT, Groom JR, Martelotto L, Parish IA, O’Keeffe M, Scharer CD, Gras S, Good-Jacobson KL. Type I interferons induce an epigenetically distinct memory B cell subset in chronic viral infection. Immunity. 2024;57(5):10.1016/j.immuni.2024.03.016

Abberger H, Groom JR. Macro-clusters: CD301b+ DCs prime Th2 responses. Journal of Experimental Medicine. 2024;221(4):10.1084/jem.20240088

Torres SV, Man K, Elmzzahi T, Malko D, Chisanga D, Liao Y, Prout M, Abbott CA, Tang A, Wu J, Becker M, Mason T, Haynes V, Tsui C, Shakiba MH, Hamada D, Britt K, Groom JR, McColl SR, Shi W, Watt MJ, Le Gros G, Pal B, Beyer M, Vasanthakumar A, Kallies A. Two regulatory T cell populations in the visceral adipose tissue shape systemic metabolism. Nature Immunology. 2024;25(3):10.1038/s41590-024-01753-9

Tellier J, Tarasova I, Nie J, Smillie CS, Fedele PL, Cao WHJ, Groom JR, Belz GT, Bhattacharya D, Smyth GK, Nutt SL. Unraveling the diversity and functions of tissue-resident plasma cells. Nature Immunology. 2024;25(2):10.1038/s41590-023-01712-w

Zaini A, Dalit L, Sheikh AA, Zhang Y, Thiele D, Runting J, Rodrigues G, Ng J, Bramhall M, Scheer S, Hailes L, Groom JR, Good-Jacobson KL, Zaph C. Heterogeneous Tfh cell populations that develop during enteric helminth infection predict the quality of type 2 protective response. Mucosal Immunology. 2023;16(5):10.1016/j.mucimm.2023.06.007

Wang N, Scott TA, Kupz A, Shreenivas MM, Peres NG, Hocking DM, Yang C, Jebeli L, Beattie L, Groom JR, Pierce TP, Wakim LM, Bedoui S, Strugnell RA. Vaccine-induced inflammation and inflammatory monocytes promote CD4+ T cell-dependent immunity against murine salmonellosis. PLOS Pathogens. 2023;19(9):10.1371/journal.ppat.1011666

Chan F, Coughlan HD, Ruhle M, Iannarella N, Alvarado C, Groom JR, Keenan CR, Kueh AJ, Wheatley AK, Smyth GK, Allan RS, Johanson TM. Survey of activation‐induced genome architecture reveals a novel enhancer of Myc. Immunology and Cell Biology. 2023;101(4):10.1111/imcb.12626

Groom JR, Vince JE. IL-1α-releasing TH17 cells live long and prosper. Nature Immunology. 2023;24(2):10.1038/s41590-022-01412-x

Kong IY, Trezise S, Light A, Todorovski I, Arnau GM, Gadipally S, Yoannidis D, Simpson KJ, Dong X, Whitehead L, Tempany JC, Farchione AJ, Sheikh AA, Groom JR, Rogers KL, Herold MJ, Bryant VL, Ritchie ME, Willis SN, Johnstone RW, Hodgkin PD, Nutt SL, Vervoort SJ, Hawkins ED. Epigenetic modulators of B cell fate identified through coupled phenotype-transcriptome analysis. Cell Death & Differentiation. 2022;29(12):10.1038/s41418-022-01037-5

Horton MB, Cheon H, Duffy KR, Brown D, Naik SH, Alvarado C, Groom JR, Heinzel S, Hodgkin PD. Lineage tracing reveals B cell antibody class switching is stochastic, cell-autonomous, and tuneable. Immunity. 2022;55(10):10.1016/j.immuni.2022.08.004

Lab research projects

Interested in supporting our research?

Your support will help WEHI’s researchers make discoveries and find treatments to ensure healthier, longer lives for you and your loved ones.

Contact our friendly team to find out how you can help.