Led by Adjunct Associate Professor Joanne Reed, the Centre for Immunology and Allergy Research (CIAR) aims to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive autoimmune, viral and neurological disease, with the ultimate goal of developing effective preventative strategies or treatments that cure disease.
Our research focus
- Amyloid disease
- COVID-19
- Influenza and other causes of sepsis and pneumonia
- Psoriasis and other inflammatory skin diseases (e.g. dermatitis and eczema)
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease (e.g. Crohn’s disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Coeliac disease)
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Immune contributions to psychiatric disease
- Motor Neurone Disease
- Spinal cord injury
- Immunobullous autoimmune diseases
- Sjögren’s disease
- Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
- Tumour immunology
Research groups within this centre
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Recent achievements
Grant Success for CIAR
In the last year, members of CIAR have been awarded over $5million in competitive funding grants to continue their research endeavors. A/Prof Joanne Reed received an NHMRC Investigator Leadership grant, Profs Andrew Harman and Scott Byrne NHMRC Ideas Grant and an NHMRC Development Grant to Scott Byrne. Dr. Caitlin Finney’s Dementia Australia grant was the top-rated application across Australia. PhD students Dr. Adrian Lee was awarded an AIFA Early Career Research Grant and Lara Glass an Arthritis Australia postgraduate student scholarship.
A new test to identify patients with COVID-19 in need of life-saving treatment
CIAR’s Dr. Maryam Shojaei and her team have developed a new test that identifies which patients with COVID-19 will develop a secondary bacterial infection, the leading cause of why people deteriorate after COVID-19 infection. Current tests to detect secondary bacterial infections are time-consuming and unreliable. The new test detects early warning signs from the immune system of bacterial infection to provide rapid and accurate information to enable early treatment. This work was published in Lancet Microbe (2024).
A global study uncovering genetic insights into multiple sclerosis
CIAR’s Dr. Grant Parnell and our past Director, Prof Graeme Stewart are part of the International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium, that have analysed genetic risk factors in over 12,000 patients with multiple sclerosis. The team’s findings, published in Nature (2023) identify new genetic variants and other factors that correlate with disease outcomes and severity and provide clues to understand disease mechanisms and enable precision treatments.