Centre for Inflammatory Diseases

Innate immunity

Group leader: Dr Kumar Visanathan

The innate immunity laboratory aims to investigate the role of the innate immune system in a number of inflammatory diseases.  The group’s focus is the importance of a specific set of immune receptors – ‘toll-like receptors’ (TLR). Particular focus is given to their signalling pathways and their output ‘cytokine responses’ in clinical conditions including Sepsis, Hepatitis B infection, rotavirus infection and infections caused by mycobacteria.  These conditions have significant community impact and very little is known about the significance of the early host immune response.

The group’s research has a strong clinical focus which is enhanced by close ties with a number of Melbourne’s teaching hospitals including the intensive care unit and infectious diseases departments at Monash Medical Centre, St Vincent’s Hospital and The Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Victorian Infectious Diseases Research Laboratories.

Research strengths include extensive experience in flow cytometric analysis, primarily investigating TLR expression and inflammatory markers in clinical samples.  The group has also developed a number of useful in-vitro blood and PBMC assays. 

Recent publications by the group show that they have made some novel advances in Hepatitis B and Sepsis research in which the importance of TLR and innate immunity was highlighted.