SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 6 - 8 may 2009

New Fellows Seminar

Thursday, 7 May 2009

Professor Charles Mackay FAA
Director, Immunology and Inflammation Research Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney

Charles Mackay has been director of the Immunology and Inflammation Research Program at the Garvan Institute since 1999. He graduated from Monash University, did his PhD at Melbourne University, and from 1987 to 1999 worked overseas, first at the Basel Institute for Immunology, and then at biotech companies in Boston, USA. He has been responsible for a number of highly cited achievements over his career and is an ISI highly cited author. His major scientific achievement includes the identification of different migration streams for T-cells through lymphoid tissues and through inflammatory sites. Other important contributions include the discovery and expression patterns of certain chemokine receptors for T-cell subsets and other leukocytes, development and promotion of chemokines and their receptors as a new class of drug target for inflammation, and delineation of the role of chemokine receptors for HIV infection. Charles is the co-discoverer of human eotaxin and human CCR3, both of which have been implicated in the pathogenesis of asthma and allergic diseases. A drug produced by his group that targets complement receptor C5aR is currently advancing through human clinical trials.

The rational migration of leukocytes in health and disease

Lymphocytes were long considered to be a homogeneous population of small white cells. The development of monoclonal antibodies, in particular, has allowed a much more thorough characterisation of the functions of lymphocytes and other white cells, and the markers that distinguish different subsets. Different leukocyte subsets respond to different types of pathogens, or participate in different types of inflammatory responses such as rheumatoid arthritis or asthma. A range of cell migration molecules are responsible for placing the correct functional subset of cells, in the right place at the right time. One important class of migration molecules are the chemokine receptors. These cell migration molecules are responsible for the directed migration of ‘naïve’ T-cells through lymphoid tissues, ‘effector’ T-cells through inflammatory sites, and a range of other leukocyte types such as B-cells, neutrophils and eosinophils to specific locations. Because these cell migration molecules are so fundamental for leukocyte traffic to tissues, they are proving to be an attractive means to inhibit inflammatory responses, and a number of new drugs that target cell migration molecules are recently approved or in clinical trials. An excellent example is the receptor for complement component C5a, and our development of this drug will be outlined.