Induction and maintenance of regulatory T cells and effector T cell hypo-responsiveness in chronic helminth infection

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Parasitic worms live within their human hosts for decades, and they do this by turning off the immune response. They use numerous tricks to this end, and the goal of our research is to identify their ploys in order to develop countermeasures. If an immune response is too vigorous it can cause damage while clearing the infection. To prevent this, one particular type of immune cell called a Regulatory T cell has the function of policing immune responses. We have found that worms are able to subvert this cell, using it to their own ends to dampen immune responses that would otherwise kill them. We are now investigating the mechanisms by which they subvert this cell. Understanding how worms turn off immunity is important at two levels; (1) to vaccinate or treat infection you need to be able to turn immunity back on, (2) strategies used by the parasite to switch off immunity can be applied to treat diseases caused by the immune system such as allergies, or to prevent rejection of organ transplants.