Project: The immune signature of sepsis
Villadangos Group
There is an urgent need for treatments of sepsis, which is a dysregulated immune response to infection causing one in five deaths globally. Alhough this burden is highest in low-income countries, over 10% of Australian Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admissions are due to sepsis, with ~25% of these patients dying in hospital. Currently, there are no therapies to reverse sepsis-induced organ failure. Phase 1 clinical trials are now testing the use of mega dose sodium ascorbate (a formulation of Vitamin C) to treat sepsis. This project will use blood samples from Phase 1 human clinical trials and blood and tissue samples from large animal studies of sepsis. We will perform detailed immune phenotype analysis and functional cellular assays using flow cytometry as our main research tool to investigate how the immune signature of sepsis changes over time in ICU and with treatment. This will help us understand the immunological signature of sepsis and identify patients most likely to benefit from treatment.
Contact project supervisor for further
information and application enquiries
Villadangos Group
10 vacancies

The Villadangos group studies the first event that triggers adaptive immune responses: the presentation of pathogen or tumour antigens to T cells by dendritic cells, B cells and macrophages. We are characterising the development, regulation and impairment of antigen presenting cells by pathogens, inflammatory mediators and tumours. We are also dissecting the biochemical machinery involved in antigen capture, processing and presentation. We use this knowledge to understand how T cell-dependent immunity is initiated and maintained, and apply it to design better vaccines and immunotherapies against infectious agents and cancer.
Villadangos Group Current Projects
-
How to harness the immune system to cure cancer: adoptive cell immunotherapy
Honours
-
MR1 – a molecular alarm system for intracellular bacterial infection
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
-
Immunoregulatory functions of the MARCH family of ubiquitin ligases
Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
-
How infection and trauma cause dendritic cell paralysis and lethal immunosuppression
Honours
-
Immuno-paralysis following severe infections or trauma
Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
-
Improving the formation of protective immunity against human viruses
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
-
The immune signature of COVID-19 patients
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
-
Trogocytosis: a novel communication system between cells of the immune system
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
-
To eat, or not to eat: defining the molecular regulation of macrophage phagocytosis by SIRPα
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science, Honours
-
The immune signature of sepsis
PhD/MPhil, Master of Biomedical Science, Honours