Staff Profile

• I obtained my PhD from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia in 2015.
• During my PhD, I elucidated novel virulence mechanisms (invasion of host cells, biofilm formation and endoproteolytic cleavage) utilised by the porcine respiratory pathogen Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae.
• I was then awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship in 2018 to work as a postdoc at the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology in Toulouse, France.
• Here, I deciphered the molecular functions of the C-type lectin receptor DCIR, a receptor that plays diverse roles in a range of autoimmune and infectious disease contexts. 
• In 2021, I joined the lab of Matthias Trost as a postdoc to study the role of ubiquitylation in phagosome maturation in response to bacterial infection. 
• I have since begun developing my own research focus: the clearance of apoptotic cells by immune cells.

My research is focused on studying how one of the primary cells of our innate immune system, macrophages, respond to the uptake and removal of dead cells (efferocytosis). In doing so, my work looks at:

• Macrophage reprogramming following efferocytosis of different type of cell death.
• Novel proteins involved in efferocytosis and the resolution of inflammation.
• The production of pro-resolving factors, such as extracellular vesicles, from macrophages following efferocytosis and how they influence the tissue microenvironment.