Immunity, Inflammation and Transplantation

This Theme’s Focus

Immune-mediated diseases (IMD)
We want to understand what causes these conditions, why some patients respond to current treatments and others don’t, and how to match the right treatments to patients to personalise the therapies they receive
Immune responses in infection
We are studying patients with COVID-19, including long-COVID. We also want to find ways of improving vaccine responses (including to COVID-19 and flu) and testing other ways of harnessing the immune system to prevent infections
Immune responses to a solid organ transplant
Transplants are life-saving but we don’t have enough organs and they don’t last forever. We are working to find ways to improve organs before they are transplanted and to reduce rejection responses to transplanted organs

The immune system enables the body to defend itself against infection. But excessive or inappropriate immune responses can lead to autoimmune diseases, where the immune system attacks the patient’s own tissues. It can also lead to rejection of transplanted organs and to unintended tissue damage in many infectious diseases (including COVID-19).

Currently, the medicines we use to control the immune system across these conditions, for example steroids, are not specific and have effects on many immune cells and other cells in the body, leading to unwanted side effects.

Our Immunity, Inflammation and Transplantation theme will use cutting-edge technologies, profiling the genetic sequence of individual cells in blood and tissue samples taken from patients, to identify new treatments, and to match the right treatment to the right patient.

Theme Leads

Professor Menna Clatworthy

Professor of Translational Immunology, Consultant Nephrologist, Director of Clinical Studies.
Email: mrc38@cam.ac.uk

Professor Arthur Kaser

Honorary Consultant Gastroenterologist

Email: ak729@cam.ac.uk

Professor Paul Lehner

Honorary Consultant, Infectious Diseases

Email: pjl30@cam.ac.uk

Meet our researchers

We are working to understand how the immune system contributes to disease in three areas of medicine:

Immune-mediated diseases (IMD)

Conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, vasculitis and rheumatoid arthritis affect up to 10% of people in their lifetime but ‘one size fits all’ treatments mean that some people get too much immune suppression, leading to infection, while others don’t get enough, so their disease symptoms are not well controlled. We are combining information from electronic health records with genetic information from blood and tissues to gain new insights into what drives inflammation and why some people don’t respond to our current treatments. This will allow us to identify ‘biomarkers’ or tests that can help personalise treatments, and to find new drug targets.

Immune responses in infection

The immune can overreact to some infections, causing collateral (unintended) damage, which leads to many of the complications of diseases like COVID-19. On the other hand, some patients’ immune systems ‘under-react’ and do not give a strong enough response to vaccines, leaving them open to infection. We are studying patients with COVID-19 to understand what causes long-COVID and how best to diagnose it. We are also working with vulnerable groups of patients with poor vaccine responses, running clinical trials to identify medicines that can protect them from infection and applying medicines to help them generate better vaccine responses.

Immune responses to a solid organ transplant

Organ transplantation can provide a new kidney or liver for those with organ failure, and can be life-saving and life-transforming for patients. However, many patients wait a long time, or even die waiting for a transplant because there aren’t enough organs available. Even those that receive a transplant know that their organ won’t last forever because of the immune response to the transplant and the side effects of the drugs we use to prevent rejection. We want to find treatments (for example, organ-repairing stem cells) that can be given before an organ is transplanted, that enable more organs to be used. We will also collect tissue and blood to study recipient immune responses after the transplant to understand who is most at risk of rejection so that we can give them better, more targeted immune suppression medicines, helping to improve graft survival and function.

Latest News

Woman with stomach pain: This image was purchased from Abobe Stock with a lifetime usage

Treating newly-diagnosed Crohn’s patients with advanced therapy leads to dramatic improvements in outcomes

February 22, 2024

A large-scale clinical trial of treatment strategies for Crohn’s disease has shown that offering early advanced therapy to all patients straight after diagnosis can drastically improve outcomes.

Coronavirus. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

Underactive immune response may explain obesity link to COVID-19 severity

March 23, 2023

Individuals who are obese may be more susceptible to severe COVID-19 because of a poorer inflammatory immune response.

Infected organoid (Credit: Teresa Brevini)

Off-patent liver disease drug could prevent COVID-19 infection

December 6, 2022

Cambridge scientists have identified an off-patent drug that…

Blood sample being placed in centrifuge - NIHR Cambridge BRC image

World-first trial to transfuse lab-grown red blood cells is underway in Cambridge

November 9, 2022

Red blood cells that have been grown in a laboratory have now been transfused into another person at the NIHR Cambridge Clinical Research Facility in a world first clinical trial.

Nurse and young participant in NIHR BioResource clinic - Image from NIHR BioResource

New cohort created to help further research in Paediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease

April 28, 2022

Cambridge researchers studying Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) in children will now have access to a panel of young volunteers with IBD, thanks to a new research cohort from the NIHR BioResource.

Cambridge recruits first patient to national inflammation study

April 1, 2022

Cambridge recruits first patient in a new national vasculitis trial

Man holding his chest - by Pexels from Pixabay

Cancer drug gives hope in treating heart attacks

January 31, 2022

Cambridge researchers have found a drug used to treat cancer could help with heart attack recovery.

Could a cancer drug be key to helping patients recover from a heart attack?

October 7, 2021

A trial is underway in Cambridge to investigate whether a cancer drug could improve the recovery of heart attack patients, by targeting the immune system.

Theatres at CUH - Image from Cambridge University Health Partners

How is research helping with life-saving liver transplants?

September 29, 2021

Professor Ludovic Vallier, theme lead for transplantation and regenerative medicine explains about the latest research that is happening in Cambridge.

Person typing code into laptop: Free for use under the Pixabay Content Licence.

World first for AI and machine learning to treat Covid patients worldwide

September 15, 2021

Researchers across the world have used artificial intelligence to predict Covid patients’ oxygen needs on a global scale.

Previous Next

Immunity, Inflammation and Transplantation Case Studies

Increasing the number of organs available for transplantation

October 16, 2024

Cambridge researchers provided evidence that showed that…

Could biopsies of donor kidneys help reduce waiting lists?

October 16, 2024

In the UK approximately 5,200 people are waiting for a kidney…

Surgery at CUH - Image from Cambridge University Health Partners

Improving dialysis for kidney patients

October 16, 2024

Cambridge researchers are investigating why arteriovenous…

Grapic of a liver in red, blue and green

Patients better off accepting a ‘poorer quality’ liver than waiting for a ‘better’ one, research shows

October 16, 2024

Research has shown that patients waiting for a liver transplant…

How is research helping with life-saving liver transplants?

October 16, 2024

Professor Ludovic Vallier, who was lead for the former transplantation…

Surgery image - image is blurry with equipment box in focus - image from Cambridge University Health Partners

Repairing damaged donor livers course increase life-saving transplants

October 16, 2024

Growing mini bile ducts in a lab to repair a damaged livers…

Previous Next

Immunity, Inflammation and Transplantation Publications

Cross-tissue immune cell analysis reveals tissue-specific a daptations and clonal architecture 2 across the human body

May 12, 2021

Stepwise pathogenic evolution of Mycobacterium abscessus.

May 5, 2021

Single-cell multi-omics analysis of the immune response in COVID-19

April 29, 2021

Development and validation of a dynamic 48-hour in-hospital prognostic risk stratification for COVID-19 in a UK teaching hospital: a retrospective cohort study

March 5, 2021

Single-dose BNT162b2 vaccine protects against asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection

March 2, 2021

The NIHR Cambridge BRC is part of the NIHR and hosted by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with the University of Cambridge. We are at the heart of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Europe’s largest health research area.

Bluesky

Contact Us

Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre
Box 277
Hills Road
Cambridge
CB2 0QQ

Tel: 01223 348490

Retweet on Twitter NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre Retweeted

Cambridge University @cambridge_uni ·

4 Feb

Cambridge is #ChangingTheStoryOfCancer.

Early diagnosis, prevention and research can improve outcomes and lead to kinder, more effective treatments.

With @CambCancer - and with your generosity - we can transform how cancer is understood and treated for generations to come.

Reply on Twitter 2019037200940233189 Retweet on Twitter 2019037200940233189 26 Like on Twitter 2019037200940233189 108 Twitter 2019037200940233189

Retweet on Twitter NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre Retweeted

National Institute for Health and Care Research @nihrresearch ·

3 Feb

Are you considering a future in social care research?

Join us for a webinar to hear about the range of research roles and entry points available to those new to the field, and find out how we can support you to develop your skills.

Register now: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_H7lgmNRoR3Wgz8_TOoHZWg?_gl=11mowcto_gcl_auNzg1OTEwMTEzLjE3NjY0MTc0OTAuNjE2NzkxOTY4LjE3Njk2ODI2NjcuMTc2OTY4MjY2Ng.._gaMzAwNTQwODU4LjE3NTgyMDY0Njg._ga_L8TBF28DDXczE3Njk3NzM2Nzgkbzg0JGcxJHQxNzY5NzczNjgwJGo1OCRsMCRoMA..#/registration

Reply on Twitter 2018625516807274963 Retweet on Twitter 2018625516807274963 11 Like on Twitter 2018625516807274963 9 Twitter 2018625516807274963

Retweet on Twitter NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre Retweeted

National Institute for Health and Care Research @nihrresearch ·

3 Feb

Thinking about a future in health and care research? 🚀
Our Academy offers a range of funding and support programmes designed to help you take your next step, whether you are exploring research for the first time or building momentum in your career.

Discover 5 key opportunities

Reply on Twitter 2018635460470251869 Retweet on Twitter 2018635460470251869 6 Like on Twitter 2018635460470251869 12 Twitter 2018635460470251869

NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre @cambridgebrc ·

8 Jan

The Cambridge-led IVORY trial has shown that targeting the immune system, by giving a low-dose of aldesleukin, could prevent future heart attacks by nearly 8%.

Learn more about the study >>https://bit.ly/4aLzW6Q

@CUH_NHS @Cambridge_Uni @NIHRresearch @RoyalPapworth

Reply on Twitter 2009304033052266815 Retweet on Twitter 2009304033052266815 Like on Twitter 2009304033052266815 1 Twitter 2009304033052266815

Retweet on Twitter NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre Retweeted

Milner Therapeutics Institute @themilnerinst ·

6 Jan

📣 The Milner Consortium Call returns with its sixth call for research proposals. Academic researchers – join our Q&A webinar to learn more and ask questions about the Call!

🗓️ 22 Jan ⏰ 10am 📍 Online

🔗 Register: https://ow.ly/5PMb50XCIuF

🔗 More info: http://www.milner.cam.ac.uk/consortiumcall/

Reply on Twitter 2008448511176511797 Retweet on Twitter 2008448511176511797 3 Like on Twitter 2008448511176511797 3 Twitter 2008448511176511797

NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre @cambridgebrc ·

5 Jan

👉 Want to help shape a future trial focused on preventing falls in older people?
👉 Are you an older adult and/or family member/carer? 👉 Free on Wed 21st Jan 2026 at 13.30 for an online group?
👉 Contact James Piercy - james@brainhrc.org
@CUH_NHS @NIHRBrainHRC @Cambridge_Uni

Reply on Twitter 2008222023550726191 Retweet on Twitter 2008222023550726191 Like on Twitter 2008222023550726191 Twitter 2008222023550726191

View more Tweets

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Immunity, Inflammation and Transplantation

This Theme’s Focus

Theme Leads

Professor Menna Clatworthy

Professor Arthur Kaser

Professor Paul Lehner

We are working to understand how the immune system contributes to disease in three areas of medicine:

Immune-mediated diseases (IMD)

Immune responses in infection

Immune responses to a solid organ transplant

Latest News

Immunity, Inflammation and Transplantation Case Studies

Immunity, Inflammation and Transplantation Publications

Contact Us

Useful Links