Vaccines and Adjuvants Group
Understanding the mechanisms of action of vaccines and adjuvants in humans is essential for ongoing development, but this is often studied in animal models. To bridge the gap between pre-clinical animal models and human clinical trials, we have developed a novel human lymph node explant model as a tool to investigate adjuvant action in this organ which is the major site where vaccines initiate immunity. Together with academic and industry collaborators we are investigating various adjuvants that stimulate immunity, mRNA vaccines and their delivery vehicles, and differences in immune responses between old and young adults, in our model.
Recent publications
Cunningham AL, Sandgren KJ, Truong, NR. Advances in understanding the mechanism of action of adult vaccines. J Clin Invest. 2023;133(23):e175378.
Duette G, Lee E, Martins Costa Gomes G, Tungatt K, Doyle CM, Stylianou VV, Lee A, Taylor J, Khanna R, Sandgren KJ*, Cunningham AL*, Palmer SP* (*equal last authors). Highly networked SARS-CoV-2 peptides elicit T cell responses with enhanced specificity. ImmunoHorizons. 2023. Jun 1;7(6):508-527.
Lee E, Sandgren KJ, Duette G (equal first authors), Stylianou V, Khanna R, Eden JS, Blyth E, Gottlieb D, Cunningham AL, Palmer S. Identification of SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid and Spike T-cell Epitopes for Assessing T-cell Immunity. Journal of Virology. 2020; Dec 21. pii: JVI.02002-20.
Shen Y, Freeman JA, Holland J, Naidu K, Solterbeck A, Van Bilsen N, Downe P, Kerridge I, Wallman L, Akerman A, Aggarwal A, Milogiannakis V, Martins Costa Gomes G, Doyle CM, Sandgren KJ, Turville S, Cunningham AL, Mulligan SP. Multiple COVID-19 vaccine doses in CLL and MBL improve immune responses with progressive and high seroconversion. Blood. 2022 Dec 22;140(25):2709-2721.
Akerman A, … Sandgren K, …Cunningham AL, Kelleher AD, Aggarwal A, Turville SG. Emergence and antibody evasion of BQ, BA.2.75 and SARS-CoV-2 recombinant sub-lineages in the face of maturing antibody breadth at the population level. EBioMedicine. 2023 Apr;90:104545.
Group Members
| NAME | ROLE |
| Dr. Van-Anh Vo | Post-doc |
| Dr. Nicole Fewings | Post-doc |
| Dr. Katie Tungatt | Senior Research Assistant |
| Aija Stubis | Research Assistant |
| Elizabeth Dunn | PhD student |
| Riley Bissett | Honours student |
| Past: | |
| Dr. Vicki Stylianou | PhD student |
| Dr. Gabriela Martins Costa-Gomes | Post-doc |
| Dr. Eunok Lee | Post-doc |
| Dr. Gabriel Duette | Post-doc |
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