Professor Ed Lavelle

I am an Immunologist and was Head of the School of Biochemistry and Immunology from 2017-2020. I have engaged at teaching at many levels in Universities in Ireland and the U.K. In particular, since October 2004 I have worked as a lecturer, senior lecturer and Professor in Immunology in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College Dublin. In addition to delivering lectures and tutorials to junior and senior sophister students, I have also lectured to students enrolled on the MSc courses in Molecular Medicine, Immunology and Translational Oncology. I was also previously engaged in lecturing at TCD and at the University of Nottingham (England). I have supervised student projects from diploma to Masters degree level and have supervised 21 PhD students to completion. I have was President of the Irish Society for Immunology from 2012-2020, organised a number of National and International conferences, chaired sessions on Immunology and vaccines for a number of national and international conferences and acted as a peer reviewer for leading Immunology journals and for funding bodies in both the EU and the USA. Since acquiring my PhD in 1994, my research has been principally in the fields of Immunology and vaccine adjuvant development. The projects I have worked on have included the piscine mucosal immune system, the use of biodegradable micro and nanoparticles as vaccine adjuvants and the evaluation of plant lectins as bioadhesives, immunogens and immunomodulators. During this time I acquired broad expertise that is applicable to the range of projects I am now engaged in and will pursue in the future. In recent years my principal research interest has been the elucidation of the mechanism of action of adjuvants and immunomodulators. In particular I have focused on on particulate vaccine adjuvants including biodegradable microparticles, alum and the cationic polysaccharide chitosan. This work includes basic research into the mechanism by which these systems activate the immune system and more applied work on the optimisation of these adjuvants for use in injectable and mucosal vaccines. The fundamental adjuvant research includes studies into the cell signalling pathways induced by these molecules which will facilitate a better understanding of their mode(s) of action. In addition, over the past number of years my team have worked closely with our collaborators within AMBER to address the potential of novel biomaterials to drive beneficial immune responses underpinning tissue regeneration. Across all of our activities we depend on building and sustaining close collaborations with national and international academic and industrial collaborators.

  ADENYLYL-CYCLASE ACTIVITY   ADJUVANTS   cAMP   Cell Death   CREB   IL-10   Immune System   Immunity   Immunology, Immunotherapy   Immunophysiology   Inflammation   LECTIN-BINDING   LECTINS   Life Sciences   Nanotechnology   NF-kappaB   Signal Transduction   Signal Transduction (Sensory/Cellular)   SIGNAL-TRANSDUCTION   SIGNAL-TRANSDUCTION PATHWAYS   Toll-Like Receptors   VACCINE   VACCINE EFFICACY   Vaccines

I am an internationally recognised leader in the field of vaccine adjuvants with a record of publishing high impact papers, attracting competitive research funding, generating and protecting intellectual property, engaging industrial partners and the public, organising conferences and adopting advisory roles. Adjuvants are essential components of vaccines that can profoundly enhance protective immune responses and specifically can affect the magnitude and type of vaccine -induced innate and adaptive immunity. My research is principally focused on how vaccine adjuvants enhance protective immune responses against infection and cancer. My group has made key discoveries that enhance our understanding of how the physicochemical properties of adjuvants influence the induction of innate and adaptive immunity. We have provided major new insights into how adjuvants engage innate cellular sensing pathways, particularly DNA sensing pathways and inflammasomes, pursuing the specific roles of interferons and cytokines of the IL-1 family in adjuvanticity. We have developed novel particulate vaccine adjuvants (IP filed, new start up in cancer vaccines launched - AilseVax). We have worked on developing an effective oral delivery system that has significant potential for vaccines against ETEC, cholera and Helicobacter pylori. The expertise we have developed in assessing particulate adjuvant regulation of immune responses also has relevance in the field of biomaterial interaction with the immune system. As a result, I have a substantial research programme in this area as part of the AMBER centre. Being a CRANN PI and an AMBER funded investigator has led to close connections with colleagues in Bioengineering, Chemistry and Physics and this cross-disciplinary dimension places my research in a unique position within Ireland. This allows me to pursue how particulate materials can regulate immune responses and how fundamental understanding of the underlying processes can help us to rationally design novel vaccine adjuvant systems but also enhanced biomaterials. My work at Trinity has been transformational over the past 17 years in establishing that nonmicrobial particulate adjuvants can be designed to activate specific innate sensing and signalling pathways and that this can be harnessed to induce and direct adaptive immune responses. This has led to publications in the leading journals in the field, many since my last promotion in 2015. The impact of my work can be seen in invitations to speak at the leading meetings in the field (111 invited conference talks and seminars since 2004), to serve on scientific advisory boards for conferences (15), to serve as chair on the advisory board of a vaccine centre in the U.K., to act as a consultant for leading (Merck, GSK, HIPRA) vaccine companies, to write reviews, commentaries and editorials and to serve as a panel member for prestigious grant agencies (e.g. Gates Foundation, German Centres of Excellence Programme). Being recognised as an authority in vaccine adjuvant research together with the global prominence of this field makes it likely that my influence will grow, generating many new research opportunities over the coming years.