Andrea Graham
Our research focuses upon how parasites interact with the vertebrate immune system. We ultimately aim to understand how natural selection has shaped strategies for both host defence and parasite transmission. Our laboratory methods will be familiar to immunologists, but our questions as well as our statistical and mathematical methods are drawn from evolutionary ecology. Of the myriad of cells and molecules that make up the immune system, our favourites are cytokines – intercellular signalling molecules that determine the type and magnitude of parasite-killing mechanisms enabled. We assess the cytokine conflicts posed by co-infection, as well as the effects of overzealous cytokine responses upon both host and parasite fitness.
The Graham Group