Molecular and cellular studies of the adaptive immune response in health and disease

免疫反应保护我们免受病毒和细菌等病原体的侵害。然而，不适当的免疫反应会导致自身免疫性疾病，如系统性红斑狼疮、多发性硬化症、I型糖尿病、哮喘以及免疫缺陷。我们建议的目的是全面了解免疫系统的所有细胞如何发挥作用并相互作用，以及炎症性疾病发生时出现的问题。我们计划使用最先进的技术，包括转基因小鼠、基因微阵列、单克隆抗体和流式细胞术。我们汇集了澳大利亚领先的免疫学家，他们在免疫学的特定领域具有互补的专业知识和研究兴趣，包括细胞因子，细胞迁移，炎症性疾病，自身免疫和细胞-细胞相互作用。应用的一个方面是了解免疫疾病的遗传和分子基础。然而，我们也希望通过开发新的治疗方法，从理解到治疗免疫疾病。我们将与生物技术和制药公司（包括我们自己的分拆公司）合作，推进自身免疫性和过敏性疾病的重要新疗法。这些情况对澳大利亚构成了重大的健康负担。

Immune responses protect us against pathogens such as viruses and bacteria. However inappropriate immune responses can result in autoimmune conditions such as systemic lupus erythmatosus, multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes, asthma as well as immunodeficiencies. The aim of our proposal is to gain a thorough understanding of how all the cells of the immune system function and interact with each other, and what goes wrong when inflammatory diseases develop. We plan to do this using state-of-of-the-art technologies, including genetically modified mice, gene microarrays, monoclonal antibodies, and flow cytometry. We have brought together Australia's leading immunologists with complimentary expertise and research interests in specific areas of immunology including cytokines, cell migration, inflammatory diseases, autoimmunity and cell-cell interactions. One aspect of the application is to understand the genetic and molecular basis of immunological diseases. However we also wish to move on from an understanding to treatment of immunological diseases through the development of novel therapeutics. We will form collaborations with biotech and pharmaceutical companies (including our own spin off companies) to advance important new therapeutics for autoimmune and allergic diseases. These conditions represent a significant health burden to Australia.