Rachael Bashford-Rogers

We are investigating how defects in the ability to mount effective immune responses lead to infectious disease susceptibility, impaired surveillance of cancer and immunodeficiencies, compared to the mechanisms leading to a breakdown
of immunological tolerance causing autoimmune diseases.

This will lead us to:

• Understand why certain individuals are at greater risk of developing immunological disease
• Highlight key interactions of immune cells within sites of inflammation or disease
• Define novel therapeutic targets or optimal therapeutic combinations
• Identify blood biomarkers immune status
• Stratify patients for improved clinical management

This is being achieved through the development and application of novel experimental and computational approaches, working in partnership with a global network of clinicians, immunologists and sample cohorts. We prioritise translational-
and patient-focussed research to work towards bridging fundamental biology to early phase clinical trials. Our research interests focus on B cell biology and their interactions with other cells in tissues and blood:

1. Development and diversification of different B cell populations in health and disease
2. Understanding the nature of B cell immuno-surveillance, regulation and activation across cancers and autoimmune diseases, with a particular focus on pancreatic and renal cancers
3. Minimal residual disease detection in lymphoid malignancies
4. Influence of genetic and environmental variation on B cell fate
5. Immune cell population reconstitution and persistence with immunomodulatory therapy
6. How B and T cells may be therapeutically modulated across diseases
7. Novel method developments (experimental and computational)