SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 7 - 9 may 2008

Awards and admission of new Fellows

Thursday, 8 May 2008

Gottschalk Medal

Dr Gabrielle Belz
The Walter and Eliza Hall Medical Research Institute

Gabrielle Belz has made a series of pioneering discoveries illuminating how the immune system deals with viruses. After completing degrees in veterinary biology and veterinary science, she trained in anatomy of the lymphatic system, gaining her PhD in 1997 from the University of Queensland. This was followed by postdoctoral training in viral immunology with Peter Doherty in Memphis. In 2000, Gabrielle moved to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research where her work has focused on how different types of antigen presenting cells drive the developmental program T cells to generate protective immunity to pathogens. She is a laboratory head (immunology) and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Scholar and Viertel Fellow.

Elucidating the cellular and molecular pathways to generate protective immunity to pathogen infections

There are many cellular combatants in the fight against infection, including the foot soldiers – the T cells and B cells – and various kinds of dendritic cells (DCs), which marshal the lymphoid forces. Development of successful vaccines against viruses and other pathogens requires the generation of potent and durable T cell responses. This has been hard to achieve because we do not fully understand how DCs communicate with T cells. DCs are highly specialised in their capacity to transmit antigenic information between different subsets of DCs. This subset-specific specialisation greatly influences the activation program of T cells and the effector phenotype acquired by T cells responding to antigens from pathogens. These interactions are crucial for determining disease outcomes to infection. This work provides a potential road map for engineering vaccines that allow us to mimic natural immune responses and maximise immunological protection.