IIT Seminar | Dr Mark Wills

Dr Mark Wills of the Cambridge Infectious Diseases Research Centre (University of Cambridge) will be speaking at the UCL Institute of Immunity and Transplantation Seminar Series on Thursday 24 January. The seminar will be held in Lecture Theatre 3 at the UCL Medical School Royal Free Campus.

Dr Mark Wills is interested in how HCMV persists and evades the immune response, in particular how it alters the generation and function of CD8+ memory T cells, and how it evades NK cell recognition. The CD8+ T cell response to HCMV is often dominated by a distinctive population of revertant memory T cells, which were thought to be terminally differentiated. However, his group has shown that these cells use an alternative pathway of costimulation to classifically defined memory T cells, enabling them to proliferate and re-home to lymph nodes and peripheral tissue. The high frequency of these cells in virus carriers suggests they are crucial for immune control. Mark’s group has also recently described a novel MHC-like gene (UL142) which can inhibit NK cell lysis of some viral strains.

All are welcome to attend. If you would like to meet the speaker after the seminar please contact the host.

Further information

• Academic profile: Dr Mark Wills
• Cambridge Infectious Diseases Research Centre
• UCL Institute of Immunity and Transplantation (IIT)

Venue map